THIS TEST IS COMPLETE. THE CHANGES ARE IN 3.1:
https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/test
I've posted a preview release of some possible improvements that are being worked on for Firefox 3.1 that should help with speed on flash drives. The specifics are being discussed here:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=442967
This will install alongside an existing Firefox Portable install in a directory called FirefoxPortableSpeedTest by default and will appear in the menu with (Speed Test) after the name to avoid confusion. The build of Firefox is from the above Bugzilla bug. The launcher is our current launcher from Firefox Portable 3.0.1.
Please test on different flash media that you find Firefox 3 slow on and post your results. Side by side comparisons with Firefox Portable 3.0.1 are especially helpful.
Download Firefox Portable 3.1 Preview - Speed Test 2 [7.5MB download / 27MB installed]
MD5: 53991274cedcf3c7cad19398543c864f
Note: This is considered a "Development Test" as it's based on a test build. It has the Minefield branding instead of Firefox and the PA Dev Test branding. You can copy your existing profile in for speed comparison purposes but you should not use it as your primary browser with the only copy of your main profile.
TESTING NOTE: We're testing speed in terms of actual usage. Loading pages, navigating from one page to another, switching tabs, etc. Basically this should be faster and 'pause' less than FFP 3.0.3.
Speed Test 2: I've updated to a new build of the test version of Firefox 3.1 pre-beta2. I've also added in the updated from the current Firefox Portable 3.1 Beta 1 launcher.