I came across this link tonight, and it’s good stuff. After applying these items, I noticed a huge improvement of the speed which Firefox loads pages.
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 receives.
If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages MUCH faster now!
I was also reading somewhere (I don’t remember where now.. I restarted Firefox to check out the above changes) that you shouldn’t make the last “nglayout” change on OSX for some reason. But give it a try– you’ll like it! Of course this also increases the load on a given webserver as it gets more simultaneous requests per browser, but I’d say that the the speed improvement is worth it.
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That “pipelining” will work on HTTP 1.1 servers, if memory serves… yup, the Mozilla FAQ has info on situations where it wouldn’t be useful, and why this is not currently the default config:
http://www.mozilla.org/project.....g-faq.html
Good link John. Yeah, I can remember in either the Netscape 3 or 4 days (perhaps even both), you could specify how many connections to make to servers at once. Of course it wasn’t a big help as I didn’t have any highspeed bandwidth action until 1997, and Netscape 4 wasn’t really stable until 98 or so, but hey.
When did HTTP 1.1 become fairly mainstream? I’d assume 1995 or 1996? I didn’t really know many details about RFC’s, network protocols, etc until 98 or so… and by that time it seemed like there were very few browsers which didn’t support it.
I can still remember thinking “I can’t wait until everyone is finally using 4.0 browsers.. I’m so tired of font tags!”
We’re a little bit past that now…
hey that’s great! signficantly improved my surfing speed. thank you..
“When did HTTP 1.1 become fairly mainstream? I’d assume 1995 or 1996?”
I don’t know current stats on HTTP1.1 server configs.
I remember running into the Mozilla docs 3-4 years ago, but when I followed up elsewhere then I got the sense that there were some realworld servers already offering HTTP 1.1 features, but that the bulk were still to upgrade. (iow, much later than 1995-6, if ever.)
I don’t know what it is now, though, and it’s a hard term to search for. If your experience runs into any of the dangers mentioned in the FAQ then I’d be interested in details, thanks.
Impressive, this actually seem to have increased the speed fairly, great stuff guys
It works with Mozilla 1.7 also. How does one config MS IE 6
Just an FYI, but setting network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to anything over 8 won’t do any good because as far as HTTP 1.1 is concerned, 8 is the max, and that’s hardcoded into the 1.1 spec, so.. =)
How well this works is also dependant on how many client requests the server is allowed to allocate.
Dear Brandon, thank You for your cooment about making the Firefox work faster, it comes truly handy and it works fine,
cheer’s
Setting the nglayout.initialpaint.delay to a higher number will render better results on higher connection speeds as it makes the page appear to load “all at once”. I have had a predefined user.js file on my blog for a while with this tweak + some additional tweaks to improve the speed. Cheers.
hey, after doing the above changes, it seems as though mozilla is using more cpu.. or is it just me.
anyone noticed that ?
still worth it though
This may be a stupid question, but how will this effect secure sites? say, payment stuff? is this just linked to Get? or post also? I won’t, say, pay something 30 times with this method?
You may not want to make the “nglayout” change on any operating system. Firefox programmer Asa Dotzler explains why:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org.....07164.html
“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.”
So basically it’s up to you; do you prefer to see part of the page immediately, at the cost of making your computer spin its wheels and take longer to finish, or wait a few seconds for initial rendering but have the entire page finish faster?
Either way, you can always change it back if you don’t like it.
Hi, where can i find an online tutorial on firefox please anyone ?
Thats a good link.
It work real faster,
Thank you
Thats a good link.
It work real faster,
Thank you
An extention of these tips:
Search around for a RAM Disk program (allocates a section of memory to a virtual drive, ie R:\). Give it whatever you can afford. Configure Firefox and IE to store the temporary cache on the drive):
R:\ (64mb)
R:\Temporary Internet Files\ (IE 32mb)
R:\FirefoxCache\ (FF 32mb)
Memory-speed cache access (Faster searching if you want to get at the files, instant deletion on clear, etc.)
I’m using RamDiskXP
http://www.cenatek.com/product_ramdisk.cfm
(There may be free programs available if you look around)
I tried doing this for a while and it definitly speeds up load time, BUT BEWARE that it will cause probs on some sites, most notably dynamic database driven systems. If pipelining.maxrequests is set too high you might get some strange page load errors where content dissapears. Setting it to 5 or 6 seems to stop the problem.
Definitely a cool tweak, but firefox is seriously fast anyway.
yeah it made flash videos loud more faster thanks
I apply this changes of “about:config�, to make firefox work faster. Boy i was wrong, first it does make the pages loud faster, but the problem is it does not show all the pictures and small things.
so when back, to the orinal settings, and it feels the same now that look back.
install the extension “fasterfox” from firefox add-ons website. i don’t know if this is said here before but i’ll post it if it is of some help. the extension “fasterfox” does everything posted above. i’ll give u the link for it. below is the link.
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1269/
I did the same configuration on Netscape 8.1 and WOW! That works even faster than Firefox!! Just thought I’d try it out, and I’m definitely impressed. Try it!
this was great thank you
that is great thing –i thryed it –but i did however use an ad to firefox wich had the simular efect –i used ”fasterfox” ad–and it is qite efective also –i realy wonder what will hapen if i change the network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to level wayyyy more then 30–can this action crush the sistem{i am not too god at computers becouse i have one since 4 monts^-^””}do you want me to give you a link to the ”fasterfox” ad ??
Stolen from cnet.
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-61.....ID=2455726
@X
Uhh, I wrote this post almost 3 years ago yet the link you left for CNet is very current.
Yeah,I saw this in a video tutorial by JimmyRcom on YouTube.
Hey man thanks! That totally worked! Firefox runs better than ever now!
Continuing the Discussion