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Speed Up Firefox

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Speed Up Firefox And Set Your Hair On Fire

Speed Up Firefox? Out of the box, Firefox is a FAR superior browser as compared to MS Internet Explorer in regards to its flexibility and reliability.  I have taken the opportunity to compile a list of tweaks anyone can use to speed up Firefox and maximize its performance. Unlike Internet Explorer, YOU WILL NOT BE MAKING CHANGES TO THE SYSTEM REGISTERY

Using these tweaks to speed up Firefox, it is likely you will gain performance improvements of several seconds when loading pages. If you don't already have Firefox, you may download it here: Firefox 2

Performance Settings Used To Speed Up Firefox

Firefox 2

To implement the following tweaks, type "about:config", without the "", in the Firefox Address bar. This will open the Firefox configuration file. Good news is that the changes do not have to be permanent. Changes made to about:config are stored in a file that is not present by default; user.js in the Mozilla profile folder. To go back to the bone stock configuration, simply delete this file and it is like the changes never happened.

When making a change to an existing setting, you will be changing an integer value or a bolean(true/false) value. After highlighting setting with your cursor, right-click to enter changes.

You may want to experiment with different values for the settings listed below. The values I have listed are not set in stone. They are the ones I have found work best for my computer. Again, if there is a problem, you can always delete the user.js file and start over.

A Video Lesson On Using About:Config to Help You Speed Up Firefox

This video is good for those of you who are visual learners and need to see what I am talking about.
Make Firefox much Faster About:Config Tutorial
by jimmyrcom | video info

1,466 ratings | 350,114 views
curated content from YouTube

The Most Important Tweaks To Speed Up Firefox

Everyone Who Uses Firefox Should Implement these Tweaks...

Firefox 2

Text in quotes is setting. Number or (true/false) is the value for the setting

"network.http.pipelining", true
"network.http.pipelining.firstrequest", true
"network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8
"user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0

Pipelining does multiple data requests at once and should speed things up. I believe IE did this before and this was partially attributable to the speed advantage that IE had over older versions of Mozilla/Netscape. Initial Paint Delay actually slows down the rendering of the ENTIRE page but since users tend to start reading before the entire page is rendered, setting this to a low value gives the impression that the page loads faster.

Tweaks Common to all configurations

These are the settings that seem to be common to all configuration files regardless of connection speed or computer speed with a couple of additions - plugin paths can be found with about:plugins and the bookmark menu delay is turned off.

"network.http.pipelining", true
"network.http.proxy.pipelining", true
"network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8
"content.notify.backoffcount", 5
"plugin.expose_full_path", true
"ui.submenuDelay", 0

Tweaks For A Fast Computer With A Fast Connection

"content.interrupt.parsing", true
"content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000
"content.notify.interval", 750000
"content.notify.ontimer", true
"content.switch.threshold", 750000
"nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0
"network.http.max-connections", 48
"network.http.max-connections-per-server", 16
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 16
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 8
"browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536

A couple settings of note - Firefox is allocated 4096 KB of memory by default and in this configuration we give it roughly 65MB as denoted by the last line. This can be changed according to what is used.

Tweaks For Fast Computer With A Slower Connection

This configuration is more suited to people without ultra fast connections. We are not talking about dial up connections but DSL / Cable connections running at slower speeds.

"content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000
"content.notify.interval", 750000
"content.notify.ontimer", true
"content.switch.threshold", 750000
"network.http.max-connections", 48
"network.http.max-connections-per-server", 16
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 16
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 8
"nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0
"browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536

Tweaks For Slow Computer With A Fast Connection

"content.max.tokenizing.time", 3000000
"content.notify.backoffcount", 5
"content.notify.interval", 1000000
"content.notify.ontimer", true
"content.switch.threshold", 1000000
"content.maxtextrun", 4095
"nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 1000
"network.http.max-connections", 48
"network.http.max-connections-per-server", 16)
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 16
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 8
dom.disable_window_status_change", true

Tweaks For Slow Computer With A Slow Connection

For People with Dial-Up Connections

Firefox 2

"content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);
"content.notify.interval", 750000);
"content.notify.ontimer", true);
"content.switch.threshold", 750000
"nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 750
"network.http.max-connections", 32
"network.http.max-connections-per-server", 8
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 8
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 4
"dom.disable_window_status_change", true

Speed Up Firefox With These Keyboard Shortcuts

Firefox 2

Power users (lazy people) love keyboard shortcuts and I have a semi-exhaustive list of the common ones here to be used with Firefox. The most important ones (in my opinion) are near the top while the more benign ones are closer to the bottom. If I have missed anything that you think is important be sure
to let me know.


To use the keyboard shortcuts hold down the CTRL key and press one of the following:

T - Opens a new tab and takes the focus to the new tab

O - Open Local File. This is one of the biggest changes from IE where both Ctrl-O and Ctrl-L opened a dialogue box for a URL.

L - Changes focus to the Address bar

Tab Scrolls through the tabs from current window towards the right. Loops back to the first tab when rightmost tab is reached

1..10 The numbers 1 to 10 takes the focus to Tab 1 to 10

N - Opens a new window like IE


B - Open bookmark sidepanel

D - Bookmark current page

H - Brings up the history dialogue box on the right. Useful if you closed a page accidentally and forgot the URL. Or to make sure your kids are not looking at porn

U - Show page source

Y - Open downloads window

K - Focus goes to search bar



Some of the more common shortcuts just for the heck of it:

R - Refresh current page

F - Find in page

G - Find Again
(used in conjunction with Ctrl-F)

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Reader Feedback

Please let me know if any of this information helps Speed Up Firefox, for you. Also, any suggestions for additional tweaks would really be appreciated

-Rossman-

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by

Rossman

I am a    Registered Nurse. I live in Tampa, Florida with my two Siamese cats, Arlo, and Timmy
 

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