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How to make firefox even faster (Tip for dial-up users)
Internet ^
Posted on 06/14/2005 8:12:32 AM PDT by Asphalt
A while ago I posted how to speed up Firefox with a broadband connection. If you missed that, click here
Below are tips for how to make a dial-up connection fast. Before you do it, if you are a bit nervous, remember that I haven't tried these as I have a broadband connection. So, do it at your own risk, but remember that you can always undo any changes.
TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: firefox; mozilla
To change values type "about:config" in your address bar. Not http://about:config, just the words "about:config: with the colon in the middle, and you will get a long list of a few hundred setting. They should be in alphabetical order.To change something from true to false, right-click, and select "toggle", to change a value, right-click and select modify, and change the number. To make a new value, right-click anywhere and select "new" and the "integer" or whatever.
For Dial-up:
browser.cache.disk_cache_ssl : true
browser.xul.error_pages.enabled : true
content.interrupt.parsing : true
content.max.tokenizing.time : 3000000
content.maxtextrun : 8191
content.notify.backoffcount : 5
content.notify.interval : 750000
content.notify.ontimer : true
content.switch.threshold : 750000
network.http.max-connections : 32
network.http.max-connections-per-server : 8
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy : 8
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server : 4
network.http.pipelining : true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests : 8
network.http.proxy.pipelining : true
nglayout.initialpaint.delay : 750
plugin.expose_full_path : true
signed.applets.codebase_principal_support : true
1
posted on
06/14/2005 8:12:32 AM PDT
by
Asphalt
To: Asphalt
Caching SSL sessions kind of defeats the purpose of securing them - someone with access to your machine will be able to dig out all kinds of stuff from the browser cache, so I'm not sure that one's such a hot idea.
2
posted on
06/14/2005 8:14:33 AM PDT
by
general_re
("Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith, but in doubt." - Reinhold Niebuhr)
To: ShadowAce
Some of your dial-up pingees might find this helpful. As I've said, I haven't tried it as I have high-speed internet.
3
posted on
06/14/2005 8:14:59 AM PDT
by
Asphalt
(Join the NFL ping list ... All thing football ... FReepmail Asphalt to get on or off)
To: rdb3; chance33_98; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; Bush2000; PenguinWry; GodGunsandGuts; CyberCowboy777; ...
4
posted on
06/14/2005 8:24:53 AM PDT
by
ShadowAce
(Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
To: pbrown; TMSuchman; FoxInSocks
To you three who were grousing on the other thread, here's for dial-up users, hope it works.
5
posted on
06/14/2005 8:25:26 AM PDT
by
Asphalt
(Join the NFL ping list ... All thing football ... FReepmail Asphalt to get on or off)
To: Asphalt
6
posted on
06/14/2005 8:30:09 AM PDT
by
ncpatriot
To: Asphalt
Thanks.
If you never hear from me again...you'll know why. LOLOL
7
posted on
06/14/2005 9:17:21 AM PDT
by
processing please hold
(Islam and Christianity do not mix ----9-11 taught us that)
To: general_re
Caching SSL sessionsI don't know what that means, also
securing them - someone with access to your machine
No one but me has access to my machine, also
able to dig out all kinds of stuff from the browser cache,
I don't know what that means either.
Ignorance is bliss...so they say. :-)
8
posted on
06/14/2005 9:22:03 AM PDT
by
processing please hold
(Islam and Christianity do not mix ----9-11 taught us that)
To: Asphalt
I've bookmarked this thread. When my daughter comes over tonight for supper, I'll put this in her hands. That way, if she messes up...I can blame her. :-)
9
posted on
06/14/2005 9:24:45 AM PDT
by
processing please hold
(Islam and Christianity do not mix ----9-11 taught us that)
To: pbrown
What the
browser.cache.disk_cache_ssl setting does is causes your browser to cache SSL sessions locally. What does that mean? Your browser, by default, stores stuff from remote websites in a local cache - basically, when it grabs images, text, etc. from a website, it saves them locally so that next time you pull up that website, it can just load them from the local cache, which is much faster than fetching them from the webserver again.
Okay, so what? SSL connections are secure, encrypted communications between your browser and a remote website - like, say, your bank, as you're reviewing your account balance. They're secured so that nobody can intercept them while in transit, and gather your account number, password, etc., and make trouble for you later. Part of that security is not storing information from that secure connection locally, so that nobody can bypass the encryption by getting into your machine and reading the info from the disk cache. Mainly, this will be a problem when you (someday) dispose of the computer - unless you take steps to securely wipe the disks, whoever gets hold of it could potentially read all kinds of interesting things about you.
Anyway, realistically speaking, there isn't a heck of a lot you can really do to speed up dial-up connections - the bottleneck is the phone line, not the browser, so tweaking the browser won't do much for you. It might make it feel faster in some cases, but it's not going to actually make it faster.
10
posted on
06/14/2005 10:09:41 AM PDT
by
general_re
("Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith, but in doubt." - Reinhold Niebuhr)
To: Asphalt
Has anybody actually done this with their browser yet?
11
posted on
06/14/2005 10:33:35 AM PDT
by
swmobuffalo
(the only good terrorist is a dead one)
To: swmobuffalo
I haven't. Try it, if it doesn't work, it's easy to change it back. Just write down the old values.
12
posted on
06/14/2005 11:11:20 AM PDT
by
Asphalt
(Join the NFL ping list ... All thing football ... FReepmail Asphalt to get on or off)
To: general_re
the bottleneck is the phone line, not the browser, so tweaking the browser won't do much for you. It might make it feel faster in some cases, but it's not going to actually make it faster.
That's a pretty broad statement. Sure, the phone line is the MAIN bottleneck - but there are lots of other configurable parameters that can potentially create noticeable changes.
13
posted on
06/14/2005 12:50:26 PM PDT
by
beezdotcom
(I'm usually either right or wrong...)
To: beezdotcom
Like what? The paintdelay and the SSL cache are about the only things I can see that might make a noticeable difference. And even then, dropping the paint delay just changes how the browser displays page elements it receives - it doesn't cause it to receive them any faster than before, so any speed improvement you see is purely psychological. Enabling pipelining doesn't do much in most cases - most servers still don't enable pipelining by default, so they'll still process your GET requests serially, the same way as before. And even if they do implement pipelining, having multiple GETs in flight doesn't magically make the server able to stuff more data down the line than the modem can handle - it'll help somewhat on high latency connections, but it's not going to make a modem feel like broadband, no matter what.
Sure, you can nibble around the edges if you want, but 99.5% of the problem is beyond your control, no matter how much tweaking you do. The default config is really just fine for most people.
14
posted on
06/14/2005 1:05:20 PM PDT
by
general_re
("Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith, but in doubt." - Reinhold Niebuhr)
To: general_re
it'll help somewhat on high latency connections, but it's not going to make a modem feel like broadband, no matter what.
These two statements aren't mutually exclusive, so?
15
posted on
06/14/2005 1:32:44 PM PDT
by
beezdotcom
(I'm usually either right or wrong...)
To: beezdotcom
They weren't intended to be mutually exclusive - if you find one of the (few) servers that implements pipelining, and it isn't on FF's internal pipelining blacklist, and it's not the first request to the server (which is never pipelined no matter what) there might be some slight improvement in transfer times, but again, not enough to make much of a
noticeable difference in most cases for most people. What
would be more noticeable is if you were on a fast high-latency connection, like satellite, where it takes a long time to set up and tear down connections, but once in place, they move quickly.
And some of these recommendations violate the HTTP 1.1 spec pretty blatently, and are likely to be ignored by many servers anyway. 4 persistent connections? Try 2.
16
posted on
06/14/2005 2:33:15 PM PDT
by
general_re
("Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith, but in doubt." - Reinhold Niebuhr)
To: Asphalt
Thank you! I'll give it a whirl this evening.
To: Asphalt
I will soon be going over to a cable connection. BTW, about 10 minutes ago I upgraded to FireFox 1.0.4. So what am I going to find different from the original FireFox version that I had previously. So far, everything looks the same.
18
posted on
06/17/2005 6:30:28 AM PDT
by
PJ-Comix
(Join the DUmmie FUnnies PING List for the FUNNIEST Blog on the Web)
To: Asphalt; backhoe
Is there a similar thread to speeding up Mozilla on dial-up?
TIA
19
posted on
06/25/2005 4:57:01 AM PDT
by
raybbr
To: Asphalt
Thanks for your post. I blows me away that anyone knows enough about a browser to be able to write a config change like you, I wish I was one of them! lol That being said there is a website Ive visited that has a list of easy to perform simple tips that speeds up dial up internet browsing quite a bit. I plan on making your config change in addition the changes Ive found at this website.
How to make dial up faster
20
posted on
04/11/2013 8:01:55 PM PDT
by
flewggle
(even more advice to increase dial up speed)
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