samsin987, do you use Spybot?
FWIW, I've recently been "sensing" a difference in my FF performance; totally unverified by any benchmark comparisons or anything like that. Sites taking a long time to load, timed out and tried again, etc. It seemed to start happening after auto updates newer than v.2.0.0.12. I am now at .14.
The other day, while searching for a new problem regarding posting at another forum, I ran across information about Spybot's immunization that can adversely affect Firefox. (The problem at the forum was related to a setting in about
:config that may or may not have had anything to do with Spybot. That's fixed now.)
I had also lost the function of the Exceptions tab in the FF Cookies options. It would freeze FF into not responding and I'd have to close it and then reopen.
Anyhow, after reading about the Spybot problem, I decided to take a look at my hostperm1 file in FF. While larger than normal, the actual size of the file was not a problem. But the list of sites in it was HUGE!
Here's a link to one of the threads about it at the Firefox forum:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewto...042843#3042843
If you use Spybot, you might try removing the immunization for Firefox and see if that helps.
In my case, I wiped all of them out and then uninstalled Spybot. I haven't been that happy with it since the upgrade to 1.5 anyway. I'll find other ways to handle cookies, etc. And I got my Exceptions tab back, complete with the ones I had added myself a long time ago.