The European Library Portal is a federated search service; many different search requests are sent to the National libraries of Europe via "http://". The default network settings of a browser are not designed for this type of request and these settings are in fact one of the main bottlenecks in The European Library portal search performances.

"The European Library - FireFox" speedup plug-in optimises FireFox network settings for federated searching. The installation of the plug-in is likely to increase the speed of overall retrieval time by 60%.

Follow the below 7 steps:

1. Download the plug-in
2. Click on "Edit Options" on top.
3. Click on "Allow"
4. Close
5. Click on Download the plug-in again.
6. Click on "Install now"
7. Click on "Restart FireFox"

Note that "The European Library - FireFox" speed generator plug-in is designed for FireFox 1.5 and higher.