There are a ton of articles (about 38,000 references with those keywords ‘tweak firefox’ on Google right now) detailing how to tweak firefox and make it faster. I have found several sites that list these settings and will go over one of the most common ‘tweaks’ that essentially boost your settings without too many configuration changes. Below you will find the steps necessary to accomplish this as well as some useful links. As always comments/suggestions are welcome.

These settings pretty much apply to all computer configurations

user_pref(“network.http.pipelining”, true);
user_pref(“network.http.proxy.pipelining”, true);
user_pref(“network.http.pipelining.maxrequests”, 8);
user_pref(“network.http.max-connections”, 48);
user_pref(“network.http.max-persistant-connections-per-server “, 8);
user_pref(“network.http.max-persistant-connections-per-proxy”, 8);
user_pref(“ui.submenuDelay”, 0);

(to apply these settings follow the steps below)

1. Start Firefox, once loaded type about:config in the address bar (this is where you would normally type a web address)

2. Firefox’s built in configurator appears where a web page will normally appear, where it says filter, type HTTP (the filter will automatically find all entries with HTTP)

3. You can change each of the settings by simply double-clicking them, each setting will be followed by the change you need to make;

A. network.http.pipelining change to true

B. network.http.pipelining.maxrequests change to 8

C. network.http.proxy.pipelining change to true

D. network.http.max-persistant-connections-per-proxy change to 8

E. network.http.max-persistant-connections-per-server change to 8

F. network.http.max-connections change to 48

4. Now that you’ve seen how the filter works find the following entries and make the chnages below.

A. ui.submenuDelay change to 0

5. Right-Click anywhere in the configurator and add a new integer, name it nglayout.initialpaint.delay and a value of 0

6. Just restart firefox and your changes should take effect .

Other Advanced Settings for Specific Configurations can be found:

Darrel Norton’s Blog

Noobsters

Testing Reflections

Google Search

Note: The first three links were the sources for this article.

Article posted on 08 7th, 2006

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