Speed Up Firefox

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1629 Location: Central FL, USA

I know this has been mentioned before, but with so many NEW users now running the Mozilla Firefox browser, I thought maybe it would be good to revisit this Speed-Up tip. I just ran onto it yesterday while cleaning out old files from My Documents. This tip works best if the user is on a Broadband internet connection. Enjoy!

Making Mozilla's Firefox "FASTER"
Here's something for broadband Users that will really speed up Firefox:

1. Type "about:config" (without the quotes) into the address bar and hit return.
Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
network.http.pipelining
network.http.proxy.pipelining

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: (Right Click on an entry and in the Context Menu click on “Toggle” to change ‘False’ to ‘True’.)

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

3. Lastly, right-click anywhere and select New-> then click on “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 2-3 times faster now.

Happy Computing,
The Doctor Cool

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 964

Why is it that if these setting are so much better (& I believe they are - although I haven't tried them in 3.5, yet) aren't they set in the browser already? - never could figure that one out. Same with the OS "enhancements". Evidently, someone in the development dept. must think otherwise. Kinda makes me wonder just what they ARE thinking.

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1629 Location: Central FL, USA

Well, just like in almost every version of Windows, there are what they set as the "SAFE" defaults.

It would seem to me that it's like a high performance sports car, with a governor on it to limit it to just 45 miles per hour.
Sure it's much safer, but it's not what you paid for. To get the performance you want, you have to either remove the governor all together or readjust it for higher performance.

I've been tweaking OS's since Windows 98.
On my very first computer, a Commodore 64, I tweaked the Kernel ROM chip to greatly increase file loading, etc.
Then in the C-1541 disk drive, I 'tweaked' the program ROM to increase the number of tracks and sectors that the drive would format on a 5.25" floppy disk, to increase storage capacity.

So, bypassing defaults by doing some tweaking is absolutely Nothing New to me. I'm just tickled silly that someone has actually published these tweaks for Firefox. After doing the tweaks, my own FF seems to be running faster.

Right this minute, I'm on my Win-7 HD and I've just done the tweaks to FF here and again it does seem to be running faster.
At least it's NOT slower. Wink

After I posted that first tweak, I found another one. Here it is.

I used to ignore the fact that the cache in Firefox would take no time at all to become full, as monitored by an extension in the status bar. And also the fact that with the addition of many extra's, RAM usage would also suffer a bit more than I would like. But after reading this and trying it out, I am a much happier human being.

To help with the "memory leaks" in Firefox:

1. Open about:config in Firefox and Right-Click in the page to create a New --> Boolean.

2. Cut/Paste the following into the text field that pops up: config.trim_on_minimize

3. Select True, press Enter and Restart Firefox.

This has worked great in my browser. A note as well, this is a Windows tip only, and not for Mac. Here is the link for the whole story: Cybernet Technology News

I did go to Cybernet News but it seems like they want you to join before you can read the articles. I opted OUT.

Y'all have a great day, y'hear?

The Doctor Cool

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 964

Yeah, I can see a "better safe than sorry", scheme but they ARE trying to push for performance. (so I thought) - It would still be interesting to sit in on one of the development discussions, just to here there thoughts. Very Happy

And I agree, nice that we can do it ourselves, if we so choose.

kenmabmcc · Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 1:52 am Post subject:

Thanks Doc.

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1629 Location: Central FL, USA

I've done the Firefox Speed Ups on all my own PC's and several customer's PC's and so far I HAVE seen an improvement on page openings on every PC.

I'm sure that there are a lot of PC's out there that are just such DOGS, that no amount of tweaking FF will help them.

But, on a well tuned PC, the Improvement tweaks should be quickly obvious.
Most all of my tune-up tips, for both XP and Vista, are posted on my web site at:
http://drwho.geek.im

Good Luck, Y'all !

Doc Cool

I was asked if the FF tweaks could be reversed if not working correctly and my answer is an unqualified "YES".

However as far as I can see, right now, the only way a tweak could not work, is if it's not properly done in the first place.
Be extremely careful when typing in the added lines.

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 964

Here is an observation I've made; seems that just adding NO-SCRIPT & AD BLOCKER alone will speed things up. - 'cause you are no longer running the "junk" you'd normally get if they weren't there. Twisted Evil

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1629 Location: Central FL, USA

Well, I'm certainly running AdBlock+.
Without it, I couldn't stand to be on LG forums at all, with all the ads throughout the posts.

But NoScript was driving me crazy so when I recently reinstalled XP, I didn't install NoScript. But, that's always a future option.

Another little thing that I do to reduce problems in my browser is to allow
NO Toolbars.

Toolbars in general are just bad news.
So many are laced with spyware, adware or Trojans.

Cheers Mate!
Doc Cool

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 964

zippybob · Joined: May 25, 2006 Posts: 10

too much this and that too get tweek and I have no problems if it works do not fix it thanks geek it up
I am the zippy

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1629 Location: Central FL, USA

Well, I guess that separates the true techies from the geeks or wannabees.

I personally found the speed up tweak very simple and straight forward.

But, I'm not deaf, dumb and blind to the fact that tweaking a config file is not for everyone.

It is, after all, nothing but a text file. As easy to edit as any text file.
I wish I could find the dang'd thing, so I could copy it to all my other PC's and save the time it takes to edit the file.

But thanks for your input.
Obviously you're using Firefox and that's a good thing. Wink

Cheers Mate!
The Doctor Cool

hamhox · Joined: Oct 21, 2006 Posts: 65

[quote]I wish I could find the dang'd thing[quote]

You and me both, Doc! When I went to apply the "config.trim_on_minimize"
tweak I inadvertently copied a leading space in front of the string, and
NOW STUPID FF WON'T LET ME CHANGE it , nor delete it. Now I wonder what consequences will result.

smoked Ham

hamhox · Joined: Oct 21, 2006 Posts: 65

Doc, I found it! browse to "Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox" with Explorer and open the file "Prefs.JS" using Notepad (or whatever text editor you prefer)
and search for the string "config.trim_on_minimize" and edit to your
heart's content!!

Happier Ham

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1629 Location: Central FL, USA

Congratulations!!!!

I've just been too busy here with more pressing issues to pursue it.

I had a really screwed up PC, shipped in to me from out of state.
That kept me busy for about three days.

I appreciate you coming back to tell us how you solved your problem.

Thanks again!

The Doctor Cool

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1629 Location: Central FL, USA

A really big, "Hmmmmm!"

I did that edit trick and found the line in question and it was set to false.

Now, how the heck did that happen???

Well, I went back into 'about:config and toggled it to "true".

I'll have to watch those things a bit closer.

Doc Cool

kenmabmcc