Firefox slow startup caused by RetailMeNot addon – Solved :)

I couldn’t figure out why my Firefox browser startup was soooo slow, and why my bandwidth monitor showed that lots of data being downloaded (>1 MB) even though I have my auto-updates DISabled.  Then, yesterday a Firefox error appeared “Script: chrome://retailmenot/content/rmn-networkhandler.js:74” which gave me a clue.  I decided to DISable the RetailMeNot add-on and the startup is now fast and there’s no extra bandwidth usage.


On further investigation, it seems that the RetailMeNot add-on updates its internal database on startup so that whenever you visit a site it checks for discount coupons or vouchers that might be redeemable at the site.
I’ve decided to turn off the RetailMeNot add-on until I’m in shopping mode – then I’ll turn it on.