In the spirit of my last post, I thought I would also tell my loyal readers about how to really speed up their Firefox web-browser. So much so in fact, that you will be amazed at how much faster your web-pages actually load.

In the spirit of my last post, I thought I would also tell my loyal readers about how to really speed up their Firefox web-browser. So much so in fact, that you will be amazed at how much faster your web-pages actually load. This little trick is really designed for website users who have broadband connections — but those of you that do not — you are probably able to adjust the settings to a slightly lower level and it will still increase your page load time. This works best on any version of Firefox 3+ :)

A little unknown fact about Firefox is the HTTP application-layer protocol that most web-pages are transferred with and the “safe” limits that Firefox developers put into the config to ensure maximum stability. The problem is that these settings are really really conservative — and while sure thing this improves stability — it slows the whole process down. To really increase your web-page speed and make your browsing experience better — and more importantly faster — with 99% stability — we need to tweak the HTTP application-layer protocol. The logic behind this is much the same as the logic behind tweaking the maximum number of connections when using Peer-to-Peer systems. The more HTTP connections the application can make on a broadband connection the better — so use the settings below to make your web-pages load at least 4–5 times faster (and indeed make Firefox load faster when you open it):

1. Type in the Firefox address bar about:config
2. Accept the Warning notification and continue
3. At the top of the page will be a filter — search for, and adjust, the following settings:

network.http.pipelining: true
network.http.proxy.pipelining: true
network.http.max-connections: 50
network.http.max-connections-per-server: 40
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy: 20
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server: 10
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests: 20

4. Then right-click anywhere in a blank space and select New → Integer
5. Name this integer “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to 0.
6. Right-click again anywhere in a blank space and select New → Boolean
7. Name this boolean “config.trim_on_minimize” and set its value to True.
8. Now in the Icon Tray, right-click on the Mozilla Firefox Icon and select Properties
9. Under “Target”, you will see the line “C:Program FilesMozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe”
10. Change this line to “C:Program FilesMozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe” /Prefetch:1"
11. Ensure that there is a space i.e. firefox”(space)/Prefetch:1"

Enjoy your new found Firefox load time and speed!