BW
01-24-2008, 06:19 PM
Hi! I've got some tips and tweaks for those of you who've gotten fast new connections of late (thanks to the efforts of Blink Broadband and Flow's U-click service). These tweaks are specifically for those on FAST and STABLE connections (at least 1 megabit), along with a somewhat recent computer; if you try them on dial-up or even the old TSTT DSL service, they will likely slow down your speed.
Also, these tweaks are specific for Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/), a popular web browser program. All of them require you to access the the about:config menu, which is done by simply typing about:config into the address bar, and pressing enter.
One more quick note. These screenshots were taken using the Mac version of firefox, but it should be identical on Windows or Linux platforms.
----
Okay, first up is to enable "Pipelining". Pipelining is a feature which speeds up page-loading, but it may cause problems with some websites. I haven't come experienced any problems myself, and I've been using it for many years now.
1. Go to your address bar (where you would normally type http://www.google.com, for instance), and type about:config
2. Press enter, and you should see a page with a list of preference
3. In the filter box, type 'pipe', and you should see something like what is shown here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/pipeliningDefault.jpg
4. Now we are going to modify those preferences. Double click the two options listed as 'false', and they should become 'true'.
5. Double click the number 4, and when the dialog box comes up, change it to 8.
You should then have something like this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/pipeliningNEW.jpg
To undo the changes, simply right click each line and select "reset", as shown here.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/reset.jpg
----
Next up is to increase the number of connections your browser makes. This allows it to download many parts of the page at the same time, so it should be done faster. Again, this requires a fast connection (at least 1 megabit) to be beneficial. Note that it also puts additional strain on the webserver.
Go to about:config
Filter with keyword "connection"
Bump up the number of max connections and max persistent connection, as shown below.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/connectNEW.jpg
(Note, everything in Bold text has been modified from the original values). If you wish to revert to defaults, right click and select "Reset" on each modified setting.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/reset2.jpg
Feel free to play with these numbers (mine are pretty aggressive). Setting them too high isn't a good thing, though.
---
The next tweak is to change the initial paint delay.
By default, Firefox will begin rendering the page only after downloading for a period of 250ms. This is done so the rendering engine can get some initial information to work with, and thus do more efficient rendering. For those on slower connections or with slower computers, you most definitely want to leave it at default.
However, if you have a fast connection and a fast computer, you might not need to do this, and you would want to start rendering as-soon-as-possible. In this case, you would want to change the nglayout.initialpaint.delay variable to 0.
This option isn't included in about:config by default in later versions of Firefox. You will need to manually add in this setting, but that's not too hard, right?
1. Go to about:config
2. Filter by keyword "paint"
3. Right click somewhere, and select "new", and then "integer"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/step1.jpg
4. Type in nglayout.initialpaint.delay (or copy/paste it in)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/step2.jpg
5. Set the integer value to 0.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/step3.jpg
The downside to this is what, while pages might load faster, you might see parts of the page move around as it is being rendered. Again, not advisable for slower computers/connections. To reset to default, simply right click and choose "reset".
---
The final tweak is to adjust the browser memory cache. If you have lots of RAM available, it's probably a good idea to bump up how much RAM firefox gets to use.
First, check how much of the cache firefox is using at this very moment. Enter about:cache into the address bar, and it should give you relevant stats. If you find the maximum is too low, you can adjust it via the browser.cache.memory.capacity variable. Note that integer value -1 is used to set the 'dynamically assigned' option.
---
Final disclaimer:
Default settings were made that way for a reason. Don't change anything unless you are prepared to test it, and reset it to default if necessary.
Again, these are for fast stable connections. If your Blink or Flow service is giving problems to begin with, these settings will probably make it worse.
Once you get it working, however, there's alot of benefit to be had.
Have fun! ;)
Also, these tweaks are specific for Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/), a popular web browser program. All of them require you to access the the about:config menu, which is done by simply typing about:config into the address bar, and pressing enter.
One more quick note. These screenshots were taken using the Mac version of firefox, but it should be identical on Windows or Linux platforms.
----
Okay, first up is to enable "Pipelining". Pipelining is a feature which speeds up page-loading, but it may cause problems with some websites. I haven't come experienced any problems myself, and I've been using it for many years now.
1. Go to your address bar (where you would normally type http://www.google.com, for instance), and type about:config
2. Press enter, and you should see a page with a list of preference
3. In the filter box, type 'pipe', and you should see something like what is shown here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/pipeliningDefault.jpg
4. Now we are going to modify those preferences. Double click the two options listed as 'false', and they should become 'true'.
5. Double click the number 4, and when the dialog box comes up, change it to 8.
You should then have something like this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/pipeliningNEW.jpg
To undo the changes, simply right click each line and select "reset", as shown here.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/reset.jpg
----
Next up is to increase the number of connections your browser makes. This allows it to download many parts of the page at the same time, so it should be done faster. Again, this requires a fast connection (at least 1 megabit) to be beneficial. Note that it also puts additional strain on the webserver.
Go to about:config
Filter with keyword "connection"
Bump up the number of max connections and max persistent connection, as shown below.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/connectNEW.jpg
(Note, everything in Bold text has been modified from the original values). If you wish to revert to defaults, right click and select "Reset" on each modified setting.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/reset2.jpg
Feel free to play with these numbers (mine are pretty aggressive). Setting them too high isn't a good thing, though.
---
The next tweak is to change the initial paint delay.
By default, Firefox will begin rendering the page only after downloading for a period of 250ms. This is done so the rendering engine can get some initial information to work with, and thus do more efficient rendering. For those on slower connections or with slower computers, you most definitely want to leave it at default.
However, if you have a fast connection and a fast computer, you might not need to do this, and you would want to start rendering as-soon-as-possible. In this case, you would want to change the nglayout.initialpaint.delay variable to 0.
This option isn't included in about:config by default in later versions of Firefox. You will need to manually add in this setting, but that's not too hard, right?
1. Go to about:config
2. Filter by keyword "paint"
3. Right click somewhere, and select "new", and then "integer"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/step1.jpg
4. Type in nglayout.initialpaint.delay (or copy/paste it in)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/step2.jpg
5. Set the integer value to 0.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/PikachuMan/step3.jpg
The downside to this is what, while pages might load faster, you might see parts of the page move around as it is being rendered. Again, not advisable for slower computers/connections. To reset to default, simply right click and choose "reset".
---
The final tweak is to adjust the browser memory cache. If you have lots of RAM available, it's probably a good idea to bump up how much RAM firefox gets to use.
First, check how much of the cache firefox is using at this very moment. Enter about:cache into the address bar, and it should give you relevant stats. If you find the maximum is too low, you can adjust it via the browser.cache.memory.capacity variable. Note that integer value -1 is used to set the 'dynamically assigned' option.
---
Final disclaimer:
Default settings were made that way for a reason. Don't change anything unless you are prepared to test it, and reset it to default if necessary.
Again, these are for fast stable connections. If your Blink or Flow service is giving problems to begin with, these settings will probably make it worse.
Once you get it working, however, there's alot of benefit to be had.
Have fun! ;)