How To Speed Up Firefox (Helpful Vanity)

[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!

[myself6]

oops

"Tweak network" extension.

[MississippiMan]

Thanks much. HUGE difference here, enough so that I'm probably gonna switch from Opera to Firefox. I'm finally getting browsing that reflects the pipeline I have. Nice nice nice.

MM

[KoRn]

Good to help ya!

[KoRn]

Merry Christmas!!!

[Mike Fieschko]

Your fame will explode: this thread has been linked on Blogdex, the weblog diffusion index, which gathers these mentions of this thread:

bestkungfu.com

offonatangent.blogspot.com

matthewgifford.com

livejournal.com/users/scottobear

blahstuff.com

[Xeth]

If you have XP Pro (only pro) you can fix your reservebandwidth from default of 20% to 0%. Type GPedit.msc in run. 1)Under the Local Computer Policy, click Administrative templates. 2) on the right double click Network. This opens the tree on the right side. 3)Now double click the Qos Packet Scheduler. Now Double click Limit reservable bandwith. This will open the properties box for the Qos packet scheduler. Under the settings tab (which will open by default) click enable, then change the % from 20 to 0. Now windows won't slow down your broadband! Bad windows, bad, bad!
There is a bandwidth test as an extension.

[KoRn]

Nice tip!!

I read about that a long time ago and had forgotten about it. It may also work to disable that feature all together.

[KoRn]

I tried this, and my speed tests are consistently faster by about + .3mbps.

Thanks again!

[Truth is a Weapon]

Bump

[BJClinton]

bump for future geekiness

[impstek]

It kind of worked for me...... w00t

[Mike Fieschko]

Go-faster tweak for Firefox on Boing Boing today, which links to how to speed up firefox? on mozillazine.org, the official site, and which links this thread!

[KoRn]

BTT

[herewego]

Could you please add me to the Firefox list?
Thanks..

[ShadowAce]

No problem. Welcome aboard.

[Mike Fieschko]

And now ... linuxtoday.com links to The Linux Box referencing this article.

Is getting slashdotted next?

[FreedomCalls]

From Broadband reports:

Stay away from this tweak

These settings violate the HTTP protocol, and give you a speed boost by flooding the web server with 20-something connections for every single image and page request. There's a reason that they're not the default.

These settings will not only cause many web servers to have problems, but they can also make your web browser be mistaken for a flood attack, which will make the server add your IP to an "ignore" list. Stay away from these "optimized" settings, unless you know exactly what they do and how they work.

[FreedomCalls]

From Mozillazine:

After seeing at least a couple dozen blog posts all referencing these changes to "speed up Firefox", I thought it would be worth a little explanation.

Yes, enabling HTTP pipelining can dramatically improve networking performance. The downside, and the reason it's not enabled by default, is that it can prevent Web pages from displaying correctly. If you've enabled this, and you find pages that aren't displaying correctly, please don't blame Firefox or the Web developer. It's probably the fact that you enabled an "unsupported" feature which is incompatible with some Web servers and proxy servers.

The second change, setting the initial paint delay at zero, may get you some content on the screen faster, but it's worth noting that it will dramatically slow down the time it takes the entire page to display. Here's what's going on. Gecko, Firefox's rendering engine, is trying to optimize between the cost of waiting for a bit more data versus doing more painting and reflows as new data comes in. Waiting a bit longer before it starts painting the page gives Gecko a chance to receive more content before chewing up CPU cycles to render and reflow the document. If you drop this value down to zero or near zero, that means you'll see the page start displaying a bit earlier, but not having received much data in that short interval, you'll have a lot more paint and reflow cycles to complete rendering of the page.

This one probably comes down to a combination of bandwidth, CPU speed, and personal preference. If it works for you, and you don't mind the side-effects, then great. Just note that what works for one person/system, may not work for another.

Yes, there are tuning change you can make (even at compile time, see Moox' optimized builds) that will dramatically alter the performance characteristics of Firefox. Feel free to experiment, but remember that most of the defaults are defaults for a reason. If your browser starts misbehaving or web sites look broken, it might be worth going back to default settings.

[Mike Fieschko]

Got a cite for the particular RFC it violates? Later posts in the broadbandreports.com thread, replying to the unregistered user there claiming a violation, say this is pipelining requests, not CONNECT.

[FreedomCalls]

And it breaks Flash apps:

"Enabling pipelining in Firefox can speed up complex page retrievals, as you note, but it can also break Flash. This is a Macromedia thing not a Firefox thing but that’s why the app defaults to pipelining disabled."

[FreedomCalls]

Got a cite for the particular RFC it violates?

RFC 2068 I believe.

[FreedomCalls]

More intelligent discussion here at forevergeek.com:

http://forevergeek.com/open_source/make_firefox_faster.php

[Mike Fieschko]

Thanks. Correctly described as 'more intelligent'.

[HoHoeHeaux]

I just followed your instructions and wow, I cannot believe the difference. I had even uninstalled Firefox, as it was so slow! This is good. Thanks!

[KoRn]

Your quite welcome!

[KoRn]

Wow, would be nice I love slashdot. As long as everyone remembers this isn't my original creation, just info gathered from a couple of emails, and confirmed on the Firefox help page. After verifying, I decided to post the info as a vanity because it worked so well for me.

I'm not looking for any fame for something I didn't discover on my own, I was just posting some good tips to help the Firefox faithful on FR. ;-)

[Mike Fieschko]

And it breaks Flash apps:

Not here (yet?). Maybe some pages, but none I've visited since making the changes.

[KoRn]

The only site I can't use with FF is this banking page that requires IE. hmmmmm Banking with IE? I think not!

[KoRn]

BTTT for those who haven't seen it.

[KoRn]

Bump for those who haven't seen it!

[July 4th]

Wow...this thread had received some serious play in the blogosphere. Good job!

[KoRn]

So I've heard. I don't get around the blogosphere much, so I haven't seen it.

[Bellflower]

Does anyone know why I have to get to FR from a back door? I just got Firefox and it doesn't regonize freerepublic.com.

[ShadowAce]

That's interesting. I guess I'll ask the obvious--are you sure you're not making a typo? I use FF on several machines, all with different OSes, and not one of them as had issues with FR.

[KoRn]

Bumperzz

[mediamentor]

If just done it to my MAC OSX version of Firefox and it works well... now can you help me find a fix for the horrible problem Firefox has is MAC OS X 3.2.8 which manifests itself as an inability to redisplay a page properly when, after scolling down one scorlls back up? (The page content dissapears like a roller blind as one scrolls up and the only way to get the page to display again is to reload the page)

[KoRn]

Hmm.. That's a good one. I'll look into it. I'm not on a Mac, so I don't know if there's any difference between the Firefox installations between differing OS's. If I find out anything I'll post back to ya. ;^)

[Lx]

BTTTTTTTTTTTTT

[katatoe]

I BELIEVE THESE SETTINGS ACTUALLY SLOWED DOWN MY BROWSER.

I'm not sure.

I did every single thing the above directions explained to do, and now my browser moves very slowly and pictures take forever to load! I am on a cable connection.. well, my roommate is on a cable connection and I connect through her computer via wireless router, etc. Pictures (once upon a time) didn't take this long to load before! What should I do?

-kt

[Marine Inspector]

bttt.

[KoRn]

It could be the router blocking the pipelining. If it's slowing you down just undo it. When I'm at work it doesn't work for me there.

[corrys]

Please add me to the firefox hint pinglist

[ShadowAce]

Done. Welcome aboard!

[UnlimitedFreedom]

How would one slow down an internet connection with firefox?

[KoRn]

I never claimed that Firefox 'slowed down' an internet connection.

I was stating that by default Firefox isn't configured to load pages as fast as possible, with dial up users in mind of course. Broadband users can 'turn up' these settings to get the most out of the browser.

[UnlimitedFreedom]

Oh, I know you never claimed it did. I was just inquiring as to whether I could slow down (or 'turn down') my connection settings or not. (I know it sounds bizarre . . . but I need to slow it down for one application)

I was just inquiring if this is possible.

[jdm]

Bump for anyone who missed this the first time around. Also, if you use IE exclusively, this utility allows IE to run as fast as Firefox (however, still no tabbed browsing, etc. with IE, of course). To this day, I use both IE and Firefox.

[jdm]

bttt

[HalfFull]

bmp

[varon]

How To Speed Up Firefox

At the same time you might want to de-gauss your monitor's screen by going HERE