July 04, 2004

• Thanks-- handy.
• status: Either we require login from users from your ISP because of abuse, or the thread is marked members only. Please login and then back up to view. That is a familiar phrase. My compatriots are notorious bandwidth abusers.
• I'm pretty sure I've never been to this site before. So it must be marked members only. Guess I won't be reading it. :)
• I don't think it is members only -- at least, I'm not a member and have no problems. Also, being totally new to Firefox, am interested in non-invasive tweaking. So, thanks!
• zooooom. cool.
• I've heard it said, here and other places, that Opera is the fastest browser available. It is fast - there's no denying that - but there are ways to make firefox render pages every bit as quickly, with just a few easy "tweaks." I had thought these adjustments were pretty well-known, but it's beginning to seem as though they may not be. So I thought it was worthwhile to bring these "hidden settings" more into the light. To get started, type "about:config" in your firefox address bar. The settings you're looking for are: 1.) network.http.pipelining 2.) network.http.pipelining.firstrequest 3.) network.http.pipelining.maxrequests 4.) network.http.proxy.pipelining 5.) nglayout.ititialpaint.delay Set #1, #2, and #4 to "true". Set #3 to a high number, like 32. Set #5 to 0. Enabling the pipelining features allows the browser to make multiple requests to the server at the same time. The "maxrequests" is the maximum number of requests it will send at once. I've heard that 8 is the most it will send at once, but setting it higher won't hurt, just in case. The initialpaint.delay is the length of time (in milliseconds) after the server response before the browser begins to paint the page. Adjusting those settings will help pages render much faster in firefox. In fact, my own observations have been that, tweaked in this manner, firefox will render faster than Opera (and yes, I realize that others may experience different results).
• Thanks, Coyote! I did what you said, and it seems to be working brilliantly.
• Thanks, this is a bit of info I like.
• (what appears in my post is just copied from the seemingly login-wanting site.) I noticed that a couple of the keys are missing in the default FireFox 0.9 installation, but just creating them works fine.
• thanks... I am barred from the site too but Space Coyote's suggestions helped me out... ) )
• I read somewhere that all the suggested tweaks weren't supported, or maybe only the supported ones were posted here. Can anyone verify?
• The official line is that pipelining doesn't work with some older, misconfigured web servers. I've had pipelining on for a while and have yet to see a problem, though. As for initialpaintdelay, the default value is so that the browser doesn't have to try and draw the page while it's also trying to calculate how it's supposed to look. The default value actually reduces the total time from click to final render. Personally, I don't usually care how long it takes for the page to finish loading; I want to start reading ASAP, so I set the value to 0. Also setting the maxrequests setting above 8 won't do much (though it doesn't hurt), as most web servers are only configured to use that many. I noticed some of these settings don't show up in about:config with Firefox 0.9. You'll need to edit your user.js to add them. I like ChromEdit for doing that stuff.
• dirigibleman: The way I like to add values is just to right-click in the about:config screen and choose New->[Integer|Boolean|String] and just type in the value.
• username: lookatme password: password I checked bugmenot for a login (available as a firebird extention). Great tips. Be sure to follow the links in the thread for more.
• I first read the post as: "How to make Mozilla as fat as Oprah." I watch way too much TV.
• Speaking of Firefox: I don't want to start a whole new Curious George for this, since I know it's been discussed, but how do you (rather, how do I, the technologically illiterate) get Flash and Shockwave to work on Firefox? I've been puttering around for about an hour, and I don't seem to have made a bit of headway.
• This is awesome. Totally sweet.
• babywannasofa - download the flash player and shockwave from Macromedia and run the installers. They detect Firefox as either Mozilla or Netscape and will install the plugins in the proper place.
• Babywannasofa -- if you downloaded the version of firefox that has an installer, flash and shockwave should find it. While trying to install flash or shockwave try to find a buttong to look for other browsers. Here is a link to some troubleshooting: http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/important.html#flash
• This is really great, thank you Skrik.
• Wa-zoom! Bananas for Skrik and Space Coyote.
• Best post ever.
• And even better if you read it using Mozilla..
• Arg, I'm having trouble changing values in Mozilla. I've got 1.2.1, and whenever I right click in about:config nothing happens. I'm trying to change the values but I've got no clue how.
• I figured out how to do this stuff in Mozilla 1.2.1, so I figure I'll share it with the rest of you in case anyone had a question like my last one. Edit your user.js file (it's easiest with ChromEdit, thanks dirigibleman), and add the following lines: user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true); user_pref("network.http.pipelining.firstrequest", true); user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 32); user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true); user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0); Goddamn, this thing screams now.
• Really worthwhile post.
• I hope this isn't a case of RTFM, but exactly what am I supposed to do here? working with MoZ 1.7, by the by.
• wait a minute... edit/preferences/advanced/html... enable pipelining. Say this is a bit quicker...