Author Topic: Speed up Firefox page loading here (Read 234 times)

Gunthr · « **on:** March 08, 2006, 12:06:01 PM »

Sorry if this has been posted already. I'm not sure where this info ultimately came from, but it really works. It takes about 5 minutes to toggle string values, and you are good to go. (This is for BROADBAND users only) Unfortunately, it doesn't speed up slow servers.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1299854/posts

Tip: To make printing a copy of the instructions uneccesary, press "Control + t" to open another tab and you can tab back and forth.

Lye-El · « **Reply #1 on:** March 08, 2006, 02:45:06 PM »

I'll give it a try

Chairboy · « **Reply #2 on:** March 08, 2006, 05:02:07 PM »

Is this one of those extensions that pre-loads every link on the page? Ironically, I can't check righ tnow because I'm stuck in IE on a super slow dialup connection, but if it is, I don't use those because they seem to be the online equivalent to parking across two spaces or on the sidewalk to protect your car from dings. Sure, it works, but it creates a hassle for other people.

Namely, there's a bunch of server load that's created and bandwidth thats expended for those servers for stuff you'll never view.

Panzzer · « **Reply #3 on:** March 08, 2006, 05:28:05 PM »

Yes, those tweaks make Firefox get more simultaneous connections to the server. I haven't used those since Firefox 1.5, I didn't see any need for those as it was fast enough for me.

Or you could get Fasterfox, which does all those tweaks and much more for your Firefox.

Gunthr · « **Reply #4 on:** March 08, 2006, 05:32:46 PM »

Yes, it is an extension. You might be right about how it works, Chairboy. I perceive pages being pulled up faster, but I really don't know if it is due to what you suggest. If it is, I may not keep it. Here is an explanation I found on the net:

Quote

(The following is from our Firefox guide);

network.http.pipelining. (Boolean) HTTP/1.1 pipelining is a feature that allows multiple HTTP requests to be issued simultaneously. Without pipelining, HTTP requests are issued sequentially, with each further request not being issued until the previous has been completed. While this may seem like a more optimal approach, it’s not without its detractors (Be sure to check out the Comments). Firefox also contains an internal listing of servers that don’t support pipelining & disables it for those to avoid problems (This isn’t necessarily definitive of course). As such, you might find some experimentation worthwhile with this feature rather than just assuming it’s always beneficial (As others guides seem to believe). As stated on W3C’s Network Performance Effects of HTTP/1.1, CSS1, & PNG;
HTTP/1.1 implemented with pipelining outperformed HTTP/1.0, even when the HTTP/1.0 implementation uses multiple connections in parallel, under all circumstances tested. In terms of packets transmitted, the savings are typically at least a factor of 2, & often much more, for our tests. Elapsed time improvement is less dramatic, but significant.
Set this to true to enable pipelining, false to disable. Further information can be found at Mozilla.org’s Pipelining FAQ.

network.http.proxy.pipelining . (Boolean) This feature performs exactly as per the above (true to enable, false to disable), albeit it applies to connections over a proxy. As before, this is a feature you may want to experiment with to determine its benefits, if any.

network.http.pipelining.maxre quests. (Integer) This specifies the maximum number of requests in a pipeline, the default being 4. If you’ve set both network.http.pipelining & network.http.proxy.pipelining to false this option can be ignored. The Pipelining FAQ makes the following point on the matter, pipelining many requests can be costly if the connection closes prematurely because we would have wasted time writing requests to the network, only to have to repeat them on a new connection. Moreover, a longer pipeline can actually cause user-perceived delays if earlier requests take a long time to complete. So while in general it would make sense to set a higher value (With the limit being 8; values above 8 are ignored), it may also be something you should experiment with to determine an optimal value.

nglayout.initialpaint.delay. (Integer) This value specifies the amount of time, in milliseconds, before Firefox should attempt rendering a page (Default of 250). This is perhaps the most misunderstood setting in Firefox, with numerous websites recommending you set this to 0 for fastest browsing. Somewhat ironically this actually increases the total time rendering a webpage, as explained by Asa Dotzler:

Setting the initial paint delay at 0, 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 & 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 & reflow the document. If you drop this value down to 0 or near 0, 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 & reflow cycles to complete rendering of the page.

So if you don’t care about overall rendering time then yes, setting this to 0 can result in some content being displayed immediately (Giving the perception of improved speed). If however, you’d prefer improved overall page rendering time then you’ll want to adjust this value based on bandwidth available. Low bandwidth (dial-up) connections can benefit noticeably by increasing this value, with 750/1000 (The former being what I use currently) proving good. High bandwidth connections should be just fine at the default (250) – besides, is ¼ second really “that” noticeable a delay anyway?

Panzzer · « **Reply #5 on:** March 08, 2006, 05:39:37 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Gunthr
Yes, it is an extension. You might be right about how it works, Chairboy. I perceive pages being pulled up faster, but I really don't know if it is due to what you suggest. If it is, I may not keep it. Here is an explanation I found on the net:

Actually, what that link of yours does is not an extension. It just makes Firefox preload everything from that page (so that the links you click on load faster) by adjusting the default settings of Firefox. What my link has (Fasterfox) is an extension, which does the same thing. Both of those try to prefetch the pages/images/whatever the webpage has linked for faster access on your computer. But I've usually got the 2-3 seconds which a page has to load to spend.

Gunthr · « **Reply #6 on:** March 08, 2006, 05:48:06 PM »

Thanks Panzzer, I don't think I can use that tweaker. I don't know enough about this stuff and don't want to tweak the settings - like you, I wasn't actually dissatisfied with Firefox in the first place...

Now I'm seeing that graphics and image intensive pages are taking a little while to fill in after a nearly instant start... I may not keep this tweak afterall.

Panzzer · « **Reply #7 on:** March 08, 2006, 06:02:32 PM »

Well, I said I haven't used any tweaks after the newest Firefox, so I haven't been using Fasterfox (the extension I linked to) in several months.

But it does the same things your link was telling to do to the settings. But I'm content enough with my Firefox without any speed updates - but I do have some extensions installed, such as Adblock (for blocking ALL unwanted addresses) and Forecastfox (for the weather forecasts).