Tweak Firefox Connections

Introduction

As we known from tweaking IE as this post ( Tweaks IE Connections ) so it is a time to increase the speed at which Firefox loads sites when browsing.

If you already tweak IE you will already tweaked Chrome too.

Solutions

By entering configuration page => Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit Enter.
As below, this settings are generally intended for broadband internet connections and observably improve your web browsing experience.

Increase Pipelining requests & Max Connections

This setting is equivalent to the IE tweak post. It allows for more simultaneous connections to web servers.
Note that the HTTP specifications suggest for 4 concurrent connections. Setting this value to double size (2*) allows for more web page components being downloaded at the same time, noticeably improving browsing.
To apply the tweak, Alter the entries as follows:

1. about:config page => in Search: bar,  type: “network.http“
2. change the values (boolean toggle it by double-clicking, integer/string double-click to pop up textbox value):
3. Firefox version 29.0.1
   network.http.max-connections = 256 (default is 256)
   network.http.max-connections-per-server = 2*default value (Firefox version 29.0.1 not found)
   network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy = 32 (default is 32)
   network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server = 6 (default is 6)
   network.http.pipelining = true (default is false)
   network.http.pipelining.maxrequests = 10 ( default is 32)
   network.http.proxy.pipelining = true (default is false)I think these FF 29.0.1 parameters are appropriate, but if you are using a prior version and don’t want to upgrade to current version try to double default value and enable above parameters
4. restart Firefox

Reduce Initial Page Delay

By default, Firefox waits 250ms : This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. To reduce this initial delay, do the following:

1. about:config page => right-click and create: “New” -> “String”
2. Name the string: nglayout.initialpaint.delay (no spaces) and set its value to an integer between 0 and 50 (something sensible, in milliseconds).
3. restart Firefox

Note: nglayout.initialpaint.delay is not present by default. When not present, Firefox waits 250 milliseconds before first displaying the page.

Use memory cache

Firefox has ability to cached files to RAM and Disk, so it is better to write cached files to RAM instead of the hard disk. This is much faster, and reduces hard disk drive wear.

To change the cache location to RAM:

1. double-click browser.cache.disk.enable to set the value to False
2. right-click anywhere and create “New” -> “Integer” values with the preference name “browser.cache.memory.capacity”
3. set value to memory size in KB. Enter 131072 for 128MB, 262144 for 256 MB depending on your RAM size.
4. restart Firefox

Summary

I think these simple tweaks will make your web browsing with Firefox 2-3 times faster and easier. Enjoy !
You will find settings that may increase your perceived page loading time a bit further.
Note: that those Firefox settings are most likely best left at the default values.