Kitz Forum
Internet => Web Browsing & Email => Topic started by: dave.m on January 01, 2008, 12:33:49 AM
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I came across this some time ago but resurrected it for a post elsewhere, I thought it may be of use to some members on here.
How To Speed Up Firefox
From:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1299854/posts
1.Type " about:config " into the address bar and hit Enter. 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 by double clicking on each one if it is not reading as below:
Set " network.http.pipelining " to " true "
Set " network.http.proxy.pipelining " to " true "
Set " network.http.pipelining.maxrequests " to some number like 8 . This means it will make 8 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!
dave
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Well I've done it and it does seem to be a bit snappier. Thanks Dave. :)
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Well I've done it and it does seem to be a bit snappier. Thanks Dave. :)
Is it a computer or a crocodile you have there? :lol:
dave
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Oh the crocodile of course; the PC just huffs at me. ;)
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>>> Set " network.http.pipelining.maxrequests " to some number like 30
This really isn't a good thing to do. Each request is like an extra user connecting to a site, and if lots of people were to use this tweak it would quickly clog up sites, slowing them down for everyone. It drives the admins of web servers mad, and you may find it drives Kitz mad when she emerges from her New Years Eve hangover. :)
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Set " network.http.pipelining.maxrequests " to some number like 30 . This means it will make 30 requests at once.
My own Firefox tweak notes recommend 8 for this value; the default is 4. Could someone (e.g. Eric) give an informed opinion on this one?
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8 is the highest value allowed by web standards, and is also the highest value recommended by mozilla.org.
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8 it is then :)
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Ooops. Better change that before the boss wakes up. :-[
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You'll be in trouble otherwise. :'(
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From mozillazine.org (http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/007164.html)
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.
Also worth reading
http://egonitron.com/2007/05/25/the-truth-about-the-firefox-pipelining-trick/
So not much point setting it at 30 anyhow - maximum is 8.
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Good information. Thanks Kitz.
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Indeed. I'm pretty sure you're not going to find many proxies that like even 8 concurrent requests though so I'd be inclined to turn the proxy pipelining off even if you leave http pipelining on.
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I've reset to 8 now. :)
And turned proxy to false!
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I'll try turning proxy pipelining off too. :)
Now how about the value for network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server - I note that mine has a user set value of 22, but I don't recall modifying it. What would be the optimum value?
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Hmm, my notes also suggest these values, comments anyone?
network.http.max-connections-per-server - set it to 16
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy - set it to 8
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server - set it to 8
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I have tried the advice on Kitz link "Also worth reading"
http://egonitron.com/2007/05/25/the-truth-about-the-firefox-pipelining-trick/
But it did not seem to load any faster :(.
I have between 20 to 35 tabs open at any one time (24 now) and they are loaded after 90 seconds then the page completely reloads again and is fully loaded at about 120 seconds.
I also use a proxy server.
I will get a better idea after using it a few times.
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I suspect a good site to test this on would be www.numion.com - with a few tweaks to the test you can almost eliminate server-side lag (eg the UK http tests are stunningly slow compared to the Belgian ones - it is in fact an EXCELLENT example of how UK infrastructure lags way behind everyone else).
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I've changed it to 8 in the original post. OK Eric? :-[ :blush:
dave
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Yes, that's fine Dave, and I won't make you stand in the naughty corner. :D
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I'm glad I read this - and it's surprising that I first became aware of the tweaks through Lockergnome. You'd think that those guys would be a bit more clued up.
I've adjusted mine accordingly.
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To be honest I have never tried tweeking FF, i am now using the Beta3 and it works for me nicely on 8. the only difference was nglayout.initialpaint.delay had to be set to disabled.
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Anyone who uses a lot of Tabs tried it ? (I'm using 25 open now). If so did you see any difference ?.