Why is Firefox so slow (and degrades over time)?

[joe at actionline.com]

===== On March 13, 2014 Brian Cluff responded to my question below: =====
> Disclaimer.. I work at Mozilla.. the official SUMO
> recommendation on this is to reset your profile.
> Beware - saved passwords, bookmarks, etc are all
> contained in your profile.
> You can export them, reset it, and reimport.

===== April 30, 2014 ===== New question(s) on this topic
Brian, I did not try the firefox reset that you suggested
because, when I looked at the huge number of settings that
would be lost and have to be rebuilt, I am very hesitant
to undertake all that.  Please see the list at this link:

http://www.upquick.com/temp/firefox.settings.txt

Meanwhile, firefox continues to be frustratingly slow.

What is the procedure to export and reimport all these
settings?



===== My original inquiry =====
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 3:48 PM, <joe at actionline.com> wrote:
>
>> My system has all the latest updates for Linux Mint
>> including the latest available Firefox for Linux Mint.
>>
>> However, for quite some time, I have had ongoing problems
>> with Firefox being very slow ... too often, frustratingly
>> slow. It usually takes about 15 seconds for the Firefox
>> browser to start.  But once started, I can open an additional
>> session in about 5 seconds.
>>
>> And, the longer I run my system without hard rebooting,
>> the slower Firefox gets. Even to shut down KDE and restart
>> it doesn't seem to help.
>>
>> Chrome, on the other hand, always boots up in less than 2 seconds.
>>
>> Also, from time to time, I get a pop-up that tells me to
>> "Close Firefox"
>> ( see this link: http://www.upquick.com/temp/ff1.jpg ) yet
>> there is no indication of any Firefox functions running.
>> So, hard reboot again.
>>
>> What can I do to speed up Firefox?