Friday, March 20, 2009

Tips&Tricks for speeding up Firefox

We’re not living in the “old computers” era anymore, but that doesn’t mean can’t have a quick loading browser or that we can’t reach optimal performance for what we have. I’ve seen many debates and advices last week that were explaining on how to tweak up Firefox in order to achieve maximum performance and I’m going to share with you the tips that really worked for me.

Save bandwidth. Get only the pages you desire

Firefox analyzes the page you load and anticipates the links you MIGHT click on; then it starts loading the page behind that link, using up bandwidth and resources. Basically, you’re downloading pages you’re not even seeing. If you’re using a cable modem or a DSL connection, you shouldn’t worry about this. The problem is this feature is enabled by default so here’s how you disable it.


* type “about:config” in the address bar

* filter the search for “network”

* double click “network.prefetch-next”

* change the value to “FALSE”

Define the upper RAM usage limit yourself. Take control.

I tested most of the browsers that exist on the market, ever since IE 4.0 and Firefox and Opera are by far the ones that take up less memory for 10 opened windows. That’s directly related to the tabbed-browsing concept they’re both promoting. Anyway, as I was talking about Firefox, there is a hidden setting that allows you to specify the maximum amount of RAM memory it’s allowed to use. Since you are required to modify a value, let me explain how you will find the optimal one for your system. It depends on the RAM your machine runs with. For values between 512MB-1GB of RAM, use figures above 15.000. If you have below 512MB, just try 50.000 and you’ll be fine. Here are the steps:.



* type “about:config” in the address bar

* filter the search for “browser.cache”

* double click “browser.cache.memory.capacity”

* enter the proper value

Optimize page loading settings

It was hard for me to believe it’s optimized by default for dial-up, although at least 80% of the connections worldwide are above dial-up. During a page load, Firefox loads elements from a page one by one, instead of downloading them in packages. On fast computers or with decent internet connections, this might not be as obvious as it sounds, but the simple fact that your browser is limited should raise a sign ;) Here are the steps for tweaking that up.


* type “about:config” in the address bar


* filter the search for “network.http”

* set “network.http.pipelining” to “TRUE”

* set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “TRUE”

* set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to the maximum number of simultaneous requests you want made (e.g 25)

* right click on a white space and click New -> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and modify its value to “0″; it’s the amount of time your browser waits before acting on received information

Cut the ram usage when minimizing Firefox

I’ve got a good result on this one, somewhere around 12000KB (12MB). This tweak will move Firefox’s used memory to your HDD freeing up your RAM. I don’t think there’s much to be said about this as we all understand the purpose and advantages, so here are the steps:




* type “about:config” in the address bar

* right click in any blank space

* choose New -> Boolean

* name the variable “config.trim_on_minimize”

* set it to “TRUE”


Firefox usually reads the about:config information when started. That means you have to reset the browser after making a change in those settings. Careful what you do and what you change since you’re playing with important information. As always, I’m open to your feedback. Good luck ;)