Firefox performance Google Maps

2

I am developing a google mapi api implementation (v3), but I mainly use Firefox 12 for developing because of Firebug. I think Firebug is a great tool, much better than the one in Chrome.

But compared to Chrome Firefox is SO slow with loading, scrolling etc! I doesn't even want to do continuous scrolling..

Is there a way to improve Firefox' performance on Google maps?

Roger Far

Posted 2012-05-07T19:53:39.153

Reputation: 259

Answers

5

Easy Solution

Ironically, it is probably Firebug which is slowing down Google Maps for you so much. To increase performance, the easiest thing would be to disable Firebug when you're not doing development.

Better Solution

Unfortunately, often times disabling such a useful tool is not an acceptable solution. Thankfully it's only a few components of Firebug that play the biggest role in slowing things down. The biggest performance gains come from disabling the "console" and/or "net" tabs, either by clicking them and deselecting enabled, or going through the options tab. Firebug's performance hit is most noticeable on Google Maps because of the large amount of requests it makes and the complex DOM structure.

Backup Plan

If that doesn't help, you can try updating Firefox and Firebug and hope that they've improved performance in recent versions. The most recent version as of when I am writing this is Firebug 1.10.0a7 for Firefox 12, and on my machine it seems to perform reasonably well even with net and console enabled.

AerandiR

Posted 2012-05-07T19:53:39.153

Reputation: 166

I am using firebug 1.11.1 and cannot seem to find the option to disable firebug for the maps.google.com url and/or gmail.com url. I have found some resources online who say that it will be hidden in a dropdown arrow near the 'net' tab on the firebug panel. but that menu does not show. disable firebug for domain x – JP Hellemons – 2013-01-11T09:17:03.103

1

Firebug should by default remember on which URLs you have it enabled and disabled, following the same origin policy. Take a look at http://getfirebug.com/wiki/index.php/Activation for more info.

– AerandiR – 2013-01-13T02:24:44.200

0

On my system, I found that disabling the "use hardware acceleration when available" option made google maps really a lot more responsive

Find it in Preferences -> Advanced -> General -> Browsing

Gremlin

Posted 2012-05-07T19:53:39.153

Reputation: 304

-2

Consider using maps.bing.com: I'm not sure what it is about google maps that makes firefox slow, but it's not just a browser issue; bing maps doesn't have the issue. (indeed, chrome seems to exhibit oddly unsharp tiles when scrolling on bing maps, in a fashion reminiscent of firefox's quirks on google maps).

I hope firefox finds a solution, because I'm not holding my breath for google to.

Eamon Nerbonne

Posted 2012-05-07T19:53:39.153

Reputation: 97

4Using another map service doesn't solve the author's problem with Google's map service. – Ramhound – 2012-12-10T18:26:48.917

If your aim is specifically to use google's mapping site, then sure - but if your aim is merely to have a fast, responsive mapping service, then I beg to differ. Incidentally; google maps has been refreshed since I last posted this, and unfortunately, the new maps is even slower on firefox. – Eamon Nerbonne – 2013-08-23T22:22:29.483