Simple way to make Firefox faster

[rolltide101x]

type this in the address bar

about:config

Accept the agreement

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to 30

right click anywhere
New -> Integer
Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay" (without quotes)
Set it to 0

Close Firefox and reopen it

This only works for broadband connections (to my knowledge). These steps make a massive difference. These steps take about 2 minutes.

[Ken-Bergen]

This only works for broadband connections (to my knowledge). These steps make a massive difference.

I tried your instructions and could see no difference.
Possibly something unique to your connection?

[rolltide101x]

Hmmm, I dont believe it's possible not to receive some benefit from it. What that does is make Firefox be able to send more than 1 request at a time from the server and it makes it automatically react to all information it receives instead of holding on to it for a sec or 2. Maybe your already going so fast it can't make a big difference? it worked wonders for me (and others) it makes Firefox just as fast as Chrome =D lol.

[wobo]

Well, 32MBit/s here, no visible difference.
Could be that the difference is more visible with low broadband (like 1MBit/s).

[doktor5000]

If you give such tweaking tips, also give people the context information on possible regressions/disadvantages:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/About%3Aconfig_entries#Network.

network. http. pipelining Boolean Determines whether to use HTTP/1.1 pipelining.
[...]
Note: Pipelining is not well-supported by some servers and proxies. Things may break — use with caution.

http://www-archive.mozilla.org/projects ... g-faq.html
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.http.pipelining

Also the biggest value which can be set for "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" is 8, values greater than 8 are assumed to be 8.

network. http. pipelining. maxrequests Integer Determines the maximum number of HTTP requests in the pipeline (sent sequentially without waiting for a response). Values greater than 8 are assumed to be 8; values less than 1 are assumed to be 1. Default value is 4.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.http. ... axrequests

Also please check http://kb.mozillazine.org/Nglayout.initialpaint.delay

Lower values will make a page initially display more quickly, but will make the page take longer to finish rendering.

You're shooting yourself in the foot there ...

[rolltide101x]

I knew about that highest value thing. This is a tweak I have known for ages that I had been using. I've never had any issues with it. Thanks for finding that info about possibly breaking a connection. I had no clue that was possible or I would never have posted it. But I still think it's a great tweak, just all users be known there is a chance of this and to change the settings back of issues persist.

[doktor5000]

Thanks for finding that info about possibly breaking a connection. I had no clue that was possible or I would never have posted it.

Well, when recommending something, more so when offering a "simple way" you should always check back
for definitive information about what you are posting and possible drawbacks/disadvantages.
You could have simply asked "is there an easy way to make firefox faster" or something like that

For Firefox (or other mozilla products) you can find definitive and extensive information at mozillazine,
also their forums offer much in-depth information. Small bits can also be found at
https://developer.mozilla.org and maybe at http://support.mozilla.com

FWIW, one site that is also rather unknown, but offers ~25.000 search engine plugins,
is http://mycroft.mozdev.org/ which also supports Internet Explorer 7/8 onwards and Google Chrome.

[rolltide101x]

For benchmark fans, I compared the tweaked version of Firefox with the Standard version and the tweaked version came out better on both test on two different websites (though not but to much n peacekeeper). Just trying to show that these tweaks do indeed help.

[rolltide101x]

Other test, I am going to redo this test to see if it comes out with this drastic of a difference again.

[rolltide101x]

2nd test shows similar results.

The tweaks do help. But it may not be for everyone, Ive used these tweaks for roughly 2 years with no issues what so ever. I had never heard of anyone every having issues with them or I would not have posted this. I do not like to have any kind of "grey area" at all with my post. So you can choose to use them or not. Just thought I would share