Fun Fact: Firefox is optimized to use dial-up settings by default!
Well... considering almost no one uses dail-up settings anymore you can do a bit of tweaking and set your Firefox to some nice Broadband/DSL/Cable settings!
1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit enter/return. Scroll down and look for the following:
network.http.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading!
2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to relatively high number like 20.
3. And finally right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.
Now start surfing the net! Visit your homepage, notice anything. Yep, Firefox browses MUCH faster!!!
Check out the Official Firefox Website or Firefox's Wiki Article!