9 Steps to Speed Up
Broadband Firefox Browsing
If you’d like to significantly decrease your broadband load time in Firefox, follow these simple instructions to change defaults originally set to accommodate dial-up users.
Step 1: Open Firefox and type about:config in the address bar where you normally type a web address.
Step 2: In the filter bar below the address bar type network.
Step 3: Double-click on network.http.pipelining to change the setting from false to true.
Step 4: On the line below network.http.pipelining double-click on network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and change the number to 10.
Step 5: Two lines below network.http.pipelining.maxrequests double-click on network.http.proxy.pipelining to change the value from false to true.
Step 6: Several lines above network.http.proxy.pipelining you’ll see network.http.max-persistant-connections-per-proxy and network.http.max-persistant-connections-per-server. Double-click each line and change the value to 8.
Step 7: Two lines up locate and double-click on network.http.max-connections and set the value to 48.
Step 8: Now right-click (control-click on a Mac) anywhere in the configurator (the area where you’ve been making the changes). Select New then Integer. When prompted, copy and paste or type the following into the field provided: nglayout.initialpaint.delay.
When prompted to add a value, enter the number 0.
Step 9: Close all windows and tabs. The changes will take effect when you restart Firefox.
These changes allow Firefox to make multiple server connections and will speed up page downloads for better, more efficient use of your broadband connection.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Sweet! Much faster…
Thanks!
April 26th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
For some uber-geek fun check out:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_FAQs_:_About:config_Entries
It gives info on the configs and their options. Note that if you copy/paste from the list to the config Filter you may not find them as spaces are added so they don’t exactly match
(e.g. ‘network. http. pipelining’ should be ‘network.http.pipelining’)
Also for more info on pipelining check out:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/http/pipelining-faq.html
April 27th, 2007 at 9:56 am
I got bogged down on step 8 “Right click anywhere in the configurator..”. when I right click no options apear. It just selects the lines (e.g. “pipelining”)
I should point out I’m in Camino, which is Firefox for the Mac, so it could be different.
April 27th, 2007 at 11:42 am
@ Jeff: Great, glad to hear it. The tip is not altogether new but I tried to make it easy to implement with Illustrations.
@ Tim: Thanks for covering the Uber crowd among us. Thanks for the added insights.
@ Phil: I changed the instructions to read “…right-click (control-click for a Mac)…” and Camino may not correlate directly with my Firefox instructions. There are, for instance, specific instructions to optimize IE as well, etc.
Thanks all for commenting.
April 27th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
[...] 9 Steps to Speed UpBroadband Firefox Browsing (tags: lifehacks internet) Posted by bartcaylor Filed in Uncategorized [...]
April 29th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
this is good…..but here is a way to do the same thing, but a lot less time. http://www.fasterfox.com it will do the same thing in as a plug-in.
April 29th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
@ Mike: If true, I’m all for making an efficiency tip more efficient yet. Thanks.
April 29th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
If firefox is soooooo cool, why on Earth is the web flooded with sites just lke this offering ways to speed it up. F*** you all.. I’m sticking with IE at least that way I don’t have to rely on people with no qualifications to provide upgrades.
Firefox = f***wits
April 29th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
@Michael: Forgive the edits—some of our other readers might not appreciate the emphasis. I considered posting links to several sites that show how to speed up IE but decided you were likely already aware of them. Thanks for commenting.
April 30th, 2007 at 2:45 am
ok seriously anyone using IE is the biggest nooooob. IE is horrible, and firefox is practialy open source and safe, where IE gives you everything you would want… like adaware, spyware, rootkits, i have written several myself to screw over my school computers. Cmon dude FIREFOX ALL THE WAY. And thanx for the tut because i noticed a great speed increase, TY !!
April 30th, 2007 at 8:51 am
[...] Want to speed up Firefox a bit? The default settings are geared towards dialup users and if you’re on a broadband connection, you can make a few tweaks to speed firefox up considerably. I walked through the few simple steps and have seen a noticable difference. Take a couple of minutes and try it out for yourself. 9 Steps to Speed Up Broadband Firefox Browsing Tags: browsers, firefox Kevin FlahautCreative Director/Designer at 404 Creative Studios. http://www.404creative.com [...]
April 30th, 2007 at 10:33 am
[...] Kevin shot me a link this morning to 9 Steps to Speed Up Broadband Firefox Browsing. The whole 9 step process took about 3 minutes and it really worked. It may be a little buggy on a PC though. I’m having some issues - not sure if they’re related though. I’ll let ya know. [...]
April 30th, 2007 at 11:10 am
[...] Kevin shot me a link this morning to 9 Steps to Speed Up Broadband Firefox Browsing. The whole 9 step process took about 3 minutes and it really worked. It may be a little buggy on a PC though. I’m having some issues - not sure if they’re related though. I’ll let ya know. [...]
April 30th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
[...] Firefox web tarayıcısı ile, 9 adımlık bir ayar sonucunda internette daha hızlı dolaşabilir, daha hızlı download yapabilirsiniz. burdaki resimli anlatımdan da faydalanabilirsiniz. [...]
May 11th, 2007 at 4:46 am
the tweaking for speeding up firefox was good. i say keep up the good work.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:02 am
@Joe: Thanks for stopping by, Joe—glad to hear it worked for you.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:35 am
Another great resource for other Firefox Tricks:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/15-coolest-firefox-tricks-ever.html
August 21st, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Thank firefox Kevin FlahautCreative. Your tips is cool
August 29th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Wow… Thats great its working.
Thanx a lot
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:11 am
Thank you very much!!! Its really work!! If you know more tricks that we can speed up our broadband connection speed, please tell us.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Cool. I will try this tomorrow.
November 11th, 2009 at 3:18 am
The faster the better.