Make Firefox 47 load all tabs at startup and disable tab loading on demand

firefox browser

Prior to version 47, Firefox had the ability to disable the default lazy tab loading behavior. The user had a choice to load only the active tab when Firefox opens or load all tabs at once in the background. With Firefox 47, this option was removed from the browser's Preferences. If you need to load all your tabs when Firefox 47 starts, here is how it can be done.

firefox logo bannerBy default, when you start Firefox 47 and restore your previous session, the browser will load a particular tab only after you switch to it. This allows Firefox to start quickly.

In earlier versions of Firefox, it was possible to simultaneously load multiple tabs in the background. The browser had an option "Don't load tabs until selected" in its Preferences.

When you upgrade to Firefox 47 and above, and you had this option unchecked, then this setting is reset.

To disable this behavior and make Firefox 47 load all tabs at startup, do the following.

  1. Open a new tab in Firefox and enter the following text in the address bar:
    about:config

    Confirm that you will be careful if a warning message appears for you.

  2. Enter the following text in the filter box:
    browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand
  3. The option browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand will appear in the list. Set it to false

This will disable the tab loading on demand in Firefox 47, meaning all tabs will begin loading at once. It can be useful for users who open a relatively small number of tabs and want to access them instantly.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

2 thoughts on “Make Firefox 47 load all tabs at startup and disable tab loading on demand”

  1. This is one of my favourite Firefox features, I wouldn’t disable it. I remember having hundreds of tabs open at one time a couple of years ago and Firefox would still work pretty great whereas with other browsers my computer would have been dead long time ago.

  2. One note – I had to go back and do it several times – not sure why. I loathe the waiting forever for each tab to load, with false was either the default setting or it was easier to get at, but worth finding and changing, but it is a bit stubborn about it.

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