How to optimize OsCommerce for better performance?

osCommerce is one of the most popular free shopping cart applications currently available.
Here are some tips on how to improve the performance of your osCommerce shopping cart:

• Check your website using website optimization online tool. It will give you valuable information on what modifications can be made in order to improve its performance.
• Reduce the number of products shown on your main page.
• Optimize your osCommerce database.
• Keep the number of additional contributions as low as possible. Install only the most necessary ones.
• Disable all default osCommerce features you are not using.
• Keep the number of external links as low as possible.