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How To Speed Up Firefox (Helpful Vanity)

Posted on 12/12/2004 12:45:50 PM PST by KoRn

Here's something for broadband people that will really speed Firefox up:

1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!


TOPICS: Technical; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: firefox; mozilla; pc
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To: general_re
Err, lemme finish that thought. Anyway, time it on some common pages and see if it makes a difference - there are plenty of perverse cases where pipelining can make the browser slower, so it's not really as simple as "pipelining - yes" for most people. If it was that simple, why wouldn't it be enabled by default?
221 posted on 12/13/2004 10:56:05 PM PST by general_re ("What's plausible to you is unimportant." - D'man)
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To: TMSuchman

I install Starband and Direcway, as well as a few others. They are not the end all and be all either. Although for folks in the boondocks, it may be the only other alternative. I think I would wait till the ka band satellite for Wildblue comes on line in early 2005 and then you will have three or four choices of satellite platform. For now, Cable modem appears to have the edge on speed over all possible choices other than T1 line, and now there is one faster than that. I travel enough and need my connection with me, that dial up is my only alternative for now.


222 posted on 12/13/2004 11:22:57 PM PST by wita
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To: general_re
" the only people likely to experience significant increases in performance are folks on high bandwidth"

Umm, Did you miss the part where it said this was for Broadband users only?

223 posted on 12/14/2004 4:59:25 AM PST by KoRn
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To: KoRn
Right. Did you miss the part where I said "high latency"? ;)

Satellite broadband users will likely see a big improvement - for the rest of us, not so much.

224 posted on 12/14/2004 6:17:51 AM PST by general_re ("What's plausible to you is unimportant." - D'man)
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To: general_re
I'm using T1 speed DSL at home, and I noticed a HUGE difference on websites that are heavy with lots of graphics and frames.

Before the changes, one site I visit frequently always loaded very slow. After the changes it loads almost instantly.
225 posted on 12/14/2004 7:05:06 AM PST by KoRn
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To: is_is

Done. Welcome aboard.


226 posted on 12/14/2004 7:09:12 AM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: KoRn

I'll check in after lunch and give you a case where it fails pretty dramatically ;)


227 posted on 12/14/2004 7:15:15 AM PST by general_re ("What's plausible to you is unimportant." - D'man)
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To: general_re
If you would, when you post your findings please include specific info. The site, your connection speed, general system specs of your machine, and the type of network you are on. Are you using Firefox?

I have yet to see negatives with these changes personally, or from the feedback so far in this thread. I'm very interested in, and not predispositioned to dispute your claims.
228 posted on 12/14/2004 7:24:40 AM PST by KoRn
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To: KoRn
Sure - I timed it myself last night after hunting around to find a page that would break the pipelining. 1.5 mbit DSL line, 2.8 GHz P4 with 768 MB memory running Windows 2000 SP4.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying there's no improvement ever, only that there are some cases when it doesn't improve things, some cases where it can make things slower, and that for most cases where it does improve things, the improvement is likely to not be earth-shattering for most people. On balance, it's probably worth enabling for most people, but it's the kind of thing that's worth a bit of testing to see if it helps in some particular case.

229 posted on 12/14/2004 7:35:47 AM PST by general_re ("What's plausible to you is unimportant." - D'man)
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To: KoRn
Okay, here's how we can test it. Presumably, you've already got pipelining enabled, so grab your stopwatch and get ready. The page I used is Google's translation page - it's nice, because it's got lots of little flag gifs, and even on a fast connection it'll take a bit to load, plus it's not some totally obscure page that nobody ever sees. First, let's clear your browser cache by going to "Tools" -> "Options" -> "Privacy" and hitting "Clear" next to "Cache". Once you've done that, start timing with your watch as soon as you click on the link, and as soon as the status bar at the bottom of the browser says "Done", stop the watch.

http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

Got it? Now, disable http pipelining and http proxy pipelining in about:config - return to the default settings, basically. Clear your cache again and close and restart your browser. Come back to this page here on FR, grab your stopwatch, and time the page load again. You should notice a fairly significant difference in load times, although which one is faster may surprise you ;)

230 posted on 12/14/2004 10:15:51 AM PST by general_re ("What's plausible to you is unimportant." - D'man)
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To: BigSkyFreeper

Same here but I cannot get my center button to work. Does yours?


231 posted on 12/14/2004 12:45:45 PM PST by Uncle Hal
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To: Uncle Hal

My center button works fine. If I click a link with the center button it opens that link in a new tab.


232 posted on 12/14/2004 12:51:22 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper (Congratulations President-Re-Elect George W. Bush!)
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To: All

/Bump for those who may not have seen it.


233 posted on 12/14/2004 7:28:16 PM PST by KoRn
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To: KoRn

You can also just put this:

// Enable pipelining:
user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 100);

in your user.js file.


234 posted on 12/14/2004 7:41:46 PM PST by philetus (Zell Miller - One of the few)
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To: KoRn

later read


235 posted on 12/15/2004 9:16:57 AM PST by scab4faa (There are 3 types of people in this world, those that can count and those that can't...)
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To: Blue Highway

ping


236 posted on 12/15/2004 9:25:43 PM PST by perfect stranger (Godel, Escher and Bach. The Eternal Golden Braid)
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To: KoRn

Any idea om how to speed up the scrolling with Firefox? Seems painfully slow compared to IE 6.

I cleared the cache and set it lower than the 50000kb default and it helped a little but not much. I also tried different settings with smooth scrolling and autoscroll and not much difference there either.


237 posted on 12/16/2004 1:56:06 AM PST by Blue Highway
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To: KoRn

I wonder if there is a way to speed up scrolling to the speed that the page up / page down buttons scroll, with the smooth scrolling option turned on, but by pressing the up or down arrow, or clicking on the up or down scroll arrows with the mouse. The up/down arrows it is painfully slow scrolling and the mouse click over the up or down scroll arrows is even slower. This was one area that IE was quicker.


238 posted on 12/16/2004 2:21:39 AM PST by Blue Highway
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To: Blue Highway

Don't know the answer to that one. I can say for sure, I had very bad scrolling issues like yours, mine were caused by not yet loading the drivers for my graphics card. I'm not saying that's your problem, but it may be something to look at.


239 posted on 12/16/2004 6:25:51 AM PST by KoRn
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To: KoRn

bookmarked


240 posted on 12/17/2004 8:11:19 AM PST by Space Wrangler
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