[wellylug] How do I make Konqueror faster?

[Gordon Paynter]

Hi all, 

I use KDE for most things, but Firefox is my usual Web browser.  I sometimes 
use Konqueror, usually because I have clicked on a link in kmail. 

Lately, I have been getting increasingly annoyed at how long it takes to open 
Web pages in Konqueror. This comparison page suggests Konqueror should be 
fast under KDE:
  http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#linspeed

My experience is that when Konqueror is launched (from kmail) it opens a popup 
window (in the background) with the title "Loading Progress" (or something).  
This window displays a progress bar, which typically sits on "0%" for several 
seconds, and then changes to a Konqueror window (without advancing the 
progress beyond 0%, though some text flashes at the bottom right before the 
change).  Then I get an empty Konqueror window for several seconds more (with 
a status message that claims to be connecting to the Web site) and finally 
the page.  

I estimate it routinely takes at least 10 seconds to start Konqueror and open 
a page, and it can easily take half a minute. It seems like the rendering 
step is fast, it's the process of opening Konqueror and fetching the page 
that is slow. I sometime get so annoyed with the time it takes that I close 
the "Loading Progress" window, return to kmail, copy the link, paste it into 
Mozilla, and open the page that way.


My questions therefore are: (a) why does it take so long to load Konqueror, 
(b) what can I do to make it faster, and (c) would I be better to siomply set 
up KDE to use Mozilla instead? 

I'm using KDE 3.3.2 (from Debian) on a modern machine (Athlon XP 2400+ with 
512 MB RAM) wioth low load. I've tried looking this up online, but it seems 
that the answers to these questions depend on what version of KDE you're 
using, and even then I see some pages where people voice the opposite 
complaint: they say Mozilla is too slow, and advocate KDE instead. 


Any advice appreciated.  TIA.
Gordon