There's an about:config entry, called browser.newtab.preload, (probably) per default set to false. If you set it to true, you will have all tabs ready to watch - once the browser stops twidling thumbs at the beginning of the session.

For any page, you may stumble upon, I do not think there's an easy solution. Browser.newtab.preload, however, may help if it is always the same dozen or so pages you want to see ready for viewing.

Thanks. This seems a partial solution - it works for a site after loading it into a tab then restarting Firefox.

It would mean me retaining tabs for these sites because I normally do not read any of them at the start of a session.

While lazy loading is a money saver for web sites I am surprised so few users consider it a serious distraction.

Can I make a feature request somewhere that Option maintains a list of pages for which the preload will always be applied?

I wonder if there may be a trade off with browser performance and memory usage that needs to be taken into account when considering such an idea?

You could file a bug but that is possibly not a good idea without prior discussion with developers as it probably would not otherwise gain traction and could be effectively ignored.

• https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

You may offer short comments in feedback, but that is not designed for serious & detailed enhancement requests, it is more akin to a barometer of opinions and issues.

• https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback

Your best option may be to trawl through the developers fora in an attempt to discover one where they may consider an enhancement request as an on topic subject

• http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#general-development

For sure there is some tradeoff, but what I had in mind (rather even than allowing browser.newtab.preload to be turned on in Options) was an option where user could choose URL's which FF always preloaded fully.

There would be no default impact on performance because by default the list would be empty. Also this works whether the page is a tab at startup or user goes to that page otherwise.

Yes I can see what you mean but this is not the place for such a discussion and developers will not see comments made in this forum. If you do start a discussion or bug maybe you would like to crosslink it by posting back here so that others may follow it.

Please tell me exactly which forum is most appropriate for me to post in (now what you know my suggestion is), and exactly what permissions and authentication procedures will be needed there. I do want a developer to see it.

Thanks for your help.

Also I admit I don't quite understand the difference between the config setting and "Don't load tabs until selected" in Tabs options. That "is" a drain on performance and currently I have it off.

Are you saying that with this config setting on, all my 60 tabs are preloading when I start FF?

I will let someone else answer properly, as I do not know, but I think the pref browser.newtab.preload may actually relate to either the newtab page or to animation of tabs.

See for example

• Tabs Strip https://blog.mozilla.org/meeting-notes/archives/date/2013/02
• and Bug 753448 - [New Tab Page] preload newtab pages in the background and swap them in when opening a new tab

The "Don't load tabs until selected" is simpler

• Tab preferences and settings

Don't load tabs until selected:
 Firefox will only load the active tab when it starts or restores your previous session. This can make startup much faster if you are restoring many tabs. The other open tabs will be loaded as you click on them. 

I note that toggles the pref browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand

Would it be more sensible to have a user-facing area where users could post a reasonably considered feature request?

Hi,

browser.newtab.preload does seem to completely load a tab if you quit FF with that tab selected.

Duplicating a tab to a new tab using the TabMix extension does not fully load in the new tab.

I don't understand the New Tab feature. CTRL + T gives just a blank page.

Can I quote text here in your reply, other than manually?

That is the first mention of TabMix Plus being installed.
Are you sure that TMP doesn't already have a feature like that?
And as far as getting a blank page when opening a NewTab - you or TMP changed a default action.

Why not ask at the TabMix Plus forum?
http://tmp.garyr.net/forum/

You can right-click > Reload Tab in TMP but it does not prevent lazy loading .

I have not found any extensions that do what I want.

Are you suggesting by default there is some gallery of tabs on CTRL + T like in other browsers? I have not knowingly changed that but is it actually going to help in fully loading the images on a page instead of waiting when I scroll down? If so I would uninstall TMP and go back to default behaviour tab. Please tell me how to default FF options.

Still would like to know where I should post this Feature Request (so that a developer would see it).

Yes Newtabs now by default do have a gallery of tabs

• Customize your Firefox New Tab page

Feature requests may be posted as bugs, but many such bugs go nowhere. You could try one of the developers' fora even if only to ask the best place to post such a request.

There is also the tabs groups feature. (I suspect further development of that is not expected, possibly some replacement of the whole sytemrestore is being considered, but i do not follow development issues myself)

• Use Tab Groups to organize a lot of tabs
• Mastering the Tab Group Editor

There are (were) extension that make this possible, but I'm not sure if any of those still work.

• Load Tabs Progressively: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/load-tabs-progressively/
• BarTab Lite: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/bartab-lite/