Can I trust this Fire fox x.x "speed-up"?

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:26 am

Okay, lately, the net has been running very slow (especially the past couple of days) and I have cable internet (no dial for me, thank goodness) and I stumble upon this http://howto.helpero.com/howto/Speed-Up-Firefox_31.html ..Supposedly a tutorial that teaches you how to alter the HTTP pipeline settings and supposedly have faster overall speed. Is it risky? Is it worth it? Are there any adverse side effects for doing so?

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:36 am

Pipelining means it makes requests without waiting for the site to respond, so it can result in pages not loading and other things, especially on servers that don't like it at all.

like downloading a file, every 10 seconds it might request the file untill it starts downloading instead of just requesting it once and waiting.

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:38 am

I see, now let's say one turned it up to around 10, would that screw something up. If it means speeding up overall speed, would it be okay/safe to do?

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:39 am

read above, i edited it to be a bit more clear.

just try it, if it performs worse, then undo the changes.

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:31 am

I tried it, but no luck. Probably better not to mess with that stuff. Unless someone has a more effective way of speeding it up.

DEFIANT · Post by **DEFIANT** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:43 am

The setting is hard coded at 8 requests. You can set it higher if you like, but it will only be read at 8 and no more. (default is 4 and its turned off):

Use these in your user.js file if you want to enable them (I don't recommend):

user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests",

;

Some sites don't like this turned on and will perform poorly, especially with picture downloads(ie not showing up).

If you want to tweak Firefox's network settings, try these settings with no ill effects (its what I use):

////Network Tweaks
user_pref("network.prefetch-next", false);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 32);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 32);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 32);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 32);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0);

(do not go above 32 or some sites will think your trying to ddos them)

Place this in a file called user.js and then move the file to you profile folder, usually :

C:\Documents and Settings\*\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*

That is, if your running Windows XP.

Here is a list of settings you can research of just check on what I've posted:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:co ... etwork..2A

Hope this helps.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:50 pm

RHDN for example will refuse any IP trying to establish more than x simultaneous connections and y connection attempts per second (I forgot what I have the server to set to off hand). I imagine you will run into other sites with connection limits in place like that. The result will be either timeouts or seemingly very slow connections.

I would advise against making this change. It's probably not a good idea. It's not really going to benefit you much.

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:51 pm

In the event I make a change I want to reverse, is there a command to reverse said changes in the about:config?

ZH/Franky · Post by **ZH/Franky** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:05 pm

Make a backup of the file containing these settings beforehand. Then if the changes you make fuck up firefox, you can just delete the config file and put the old one back in there.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 12:58 am

neo_bahamut1985 wrote:In the event I make a change I want to reverse, is there a command to reverse said changes in the about:config?

In Seamonkey, you can right-click one you've changed and select"reset".

I ass-u-me that Firefox handles it similarly.

Post by **odditude** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 1:00 am

Gil_Hamilton wrote:
neo_bahamut1985 wrote:In the event I make a change I want to reverse, is there a command to reverse said changes in the about:config?
In Seamonkey, you can right-click one you've changed and select"reset".

I ass-u-me that Firefox handles it similarly.

indeed it does.

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 1:42 am

I finally got the thing to reset to the default settings. For a while, it screwed up more than it helped. Frankly, it works better on its normal settings IMHO.

paulguy · Post by **paulguy** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 5:32 pm

if it's suddenly slow, you should try to fix the problem, rather than tweaking something unrelated to compensate.

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 5:45 pm

I had to reset the settings; remind to never screw with those settings again. Those so-called "speed up Fire fox" guides are BS.

DEFIANT · Post by **DEFIANT** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:43 pm

Nightcrawler wrote:RHDN for example will refuse any IP trying to establish more than x simultaneous connections and y connection attempts per second (I forgot what I have the server to set to off hand). I imagine you will run into other sites with connection limits in place like that. The result will be either timeouts or seemingly very slow connections.

I would advise against making this change. It's probably not a good idea. It's not really going to benefit you much.

I have no problem what so ever browsing RHDN. I've found that at my current network settings of 32, I have encountered 0 problems sailing sites. And I frequent a lot of different sites.

Let's be honest, The only reason you say not to change anything, is because of people like me who push hammering severs to their max. Frankly...I honestly don't care. As long as I can connect, I find zero flaws in that logic. Until I encounter a site that refuses me access based solely on my network tweaks, I see no reason to change it.

Neo, sorry your having troubles, but don't bash those tweaks solely on your inexperience. They work at what they do.

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 7:33 pm

I think it's better not to mess with the settings, you know? Some things are not meant to be screwed around with IMHO. Understanding the deep, dark secrets of the Internet is not my forté.

DEFIANT · Post by **DEFIANT** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 7:55 pm

Well I can respect that. Though, if you change your mind and need to know some dark secrets about Firefox, I'll be around.

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:33 am

For what it's worth, changing those settings were never, ever a problem for me. And the speed increase was pretty snazzy (back in firefox 2, at least... haven't gotten around to trying it in 3 yet).

It does help to have some idea of what you're doing, however.