Firefox Tuning

[firstc520]

or what is a good setting for dialup also?

i want to be able to view the images though also.....i normally tweak FF using about:config how do i make sure i have a user.js file (i created one by saying new text document...but it doesn't ever add anything to it) i really like FF and want to tweak it to run nice.

Thanks

P.S. almost forgot unlike some of you guys, i have a slow pc, 450Mhz...so the tweaks for a fast pc i don't know if they will work or not.

[laszlo]

Could y'all look at the following & recommend some Download Manager Tweaks?

Code: Select all

browser.download.manager.closeWhenDone - userset - boolean - false (was true)
browser.download.manager.flashCount - default - integer - 2
browser.download.manager.focusWhenStarting - userset - boolean - false
browser.download.manager.openDelay - default - integer - 100 (was 500)
browser.download.manager.retention - default - integer - 2
browser.download.manager.showAlertInterval - userset - integer - 1000  (was 2000)
browser.download.manager.showAlertOnComplete - userset - boolean - false (was true)
browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting - default - boolean - true
browser.download.manager.useWindow - default - boolean - true
browser.download.progressDnldDialog.keepAlive - userset - boolean - false
browser.download.save_converter_index - userset - integer - 0
browser.download.useDownloadDir   - userset - boolean - false
browser.download.useProgressDialogs - userset - boolean - false

I don't know it exactly, but I think these two are not longer used with the new DM:

browser.download.progressDnldDialog.keepAlive
browser.download.useProgressDialogs

Aside from that, you seem to have everything covered. There are no additional DM prefs I'd be aware of.

[Chrysalis]

great tips thanks a lot

personally I think firefox rips apart IE in terms of speed, it loads pages from net about 10-50% faster, but the real difference is cached pages, try this test.

load up 3 differed net pages in different IE windows, then in each window load a second url, now in window 1 or 2 (not the most recent window very important) click on the back button, you will notice there is a pause for no reason of around 2-5 seconds, normally any images on the page have to be reloaded from net as well.

with firefox using back and forward it is always instant for me, and with over 10 tabs open

thats the real speed improvement in my book.

[laszlo]

or what is a good setting for dialup also?

i want to be able to view the images though also.....i normally tweak FF using about:config how do i make sure i have a user.js file (i created one by saying new text document...but it doesn't ever add anything to it) i really like FF and want to tweak it to run nice.

Thanks

P.S. almost forgot unlike some of you guys, i have a slow pc, 450Mhz...so the tweaks for a fast pc i don't know if they will work or not.

If you have problems creating a user.js, you should take a look at the ChromEdit extension. It allows you to edit all your user configuration files in the browser.

With regard to your connection and system speed, try these sets:

Rendering settings:

user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);
user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5);
user_pref("content.notify.interval", 750000);
user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);
user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 750000);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 750);

or alternatively:

user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 3000000);
user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5);
user_pref("content.notify.interval", 1000000);
user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);
user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 1000000);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 1000);

Connection settings:

user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 32);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 8);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 8);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 4);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);

Also try different settings for this pref (4, 6 8):

user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8);

Also use this if it's okay on your system to cache pages served over a secure connection:

user_pref("browser.cache.disk_cache_ssl", true);

Use what gives you the best performance. If you don't see any improvement, just remove these settings both form user.js as well as from prefs.js.

[Chrysalis]

nglayout initial paint delay, what exactly does this do, 750 seems a high setting so is higher faster (default 250)

thanks

[laszlo]

I'll try to explain it to the best of my knowledge: it decides about when the first reflow attempt is made if (and only if) the page isn't rendered completely anyway before this delay. A page reflow consume precious CPU time, so if you delay it a little longer, the total page load time goes down and the page layout calculation is closer to its final state when the first reflow happens.

Furthermore, synchronizing this value with the content sink timings seems to give the best results on my system (and obviously on others, too). I also tried it with lower values both for the content sink timings and the initial paint delay, but lower settings for the content sink timings noticeably raised the total page load times on my system.

[Chrysalis]

ok thanks for the explanation, I have set my delay to 750 and made sure the releveant content values are in synch

[PhoenixNostalgia]

So what are the definitive settings as of this moment for both dial up and broadband?

[Rigido]

How you advise changing your current settings (which I believe are for dialup) if one was on broadband?

Good question...
I have a 2Mbit DSL connection and right now I just added some pipelining options, I'll try to use the laszlo settings...

[Chrysalis]

my main box is down at the moment but the tweaks I did do helped I think.

[PhoenixNostalgia]

Alrighty...did some tests on my Dial-up connection on a 1 ghz P3.

I would have to say that I got the best results from the actual user.js settings that laszlo uses.

Code: Select all

user_pref("browser.blink_allowed", true);
user_pref("browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536);
user_pref("browser.cache.disk_cache_ssl", true);
user_pref("browser.chrome.load_toolbar_icons", 2);
user_pref("browser.display.enable_marquee", true);
user_pref("browser.display.screen_resolution", 81);
user_pref("browser.display.show_image_placeholders", false);
user_pref("browser.related.enabled", false);
user_pref("browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll", true);
user_pref("browser.xul.error_pages.enabled", true);
user_pref("clipboard.autocopy", true);
user_pref("content.interrupt.parsing", true);
user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);
user_pref("content.maxtextrun", 8191);
user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5);
user_pref("content.notify.interval", 750000);
user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);
user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 750000);
user_pref("dom.allow_scripts_to_close_windows", false);
user_pref("dom.disable_image_src_set", false);
user_pref("dom.disable_open_click_delay", 1000);
user_pref("dom.disable_open_during_load", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_flip", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_move_resize", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.close", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.directories", false);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.location", false);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.menubar", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.minimizable", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.personalbar", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.resizable", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.scrollbars", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.status", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.titlebar", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.toolbar", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_status_change", true);
user_pref("editor.singleLine.pasteNewlines", 0);
user_pref("inspector.blink.border-color", "#CC0000")
user_pref("inspector.blink.border-width", 1);
user_pref("inspector.blink.duration", 2000);
user_pref("inspector.blink.invert", false);
user_pref("inspector.blink.on", true);
user_pref("inspector.blink.speed", 200);
user_pref("inspector.dom.showAnon", true);
user_pref("inspector.dom.showWhitespaceNodes", true);
user_pref("layout.word_select.eat_space_to_next_word", false);
user_pref("layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation", false);
user_pref("layout.xml.prettyprint", true);
user_pref("middlemouse.contentLoadURL", false);
user_pref("middlemouse.paste", true);
user_pref("middlemouse.scrollbarPosition", true);
user_pref("mousewheel.withcontrolkey.action", 1);
user_pref("mousewheel.withnokey.numlines", 10);
user_pref("mousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlines", false);
user_pref("mousewheel.withshiftkey.action", 3);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 32);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 8);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 8);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 4);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 750);
user_pref("plugin.expose_full_path", true);
user_pref("plugin.scan.Acrobat", "6.0");
user_pref("security.warn_entering_secure", false);
user_pref("security.warn_entering_weak", true);
user_pref("security.warn_leaving_secure", false);
user_pref("security.warn_submit_insecure", false);
user_pref("security.warn_viewing_mixed", false);
user_pref("signed.applets.codebase_principal_support", true);
user_pref("ui.submenuDelay", 50);
user_pref("ui.textSelectBackground", "darkblue");
user_pref("ui.textSelectBackgroundAttention", "lightgreen");
user_pref("ui.textSelectForeground", "white");

Great results here with the 2250000 tokenizing value instead of the 3000000 for dialup users and keeping connections at 32 and NOT 48.

If anybody can see what works best for broadband, please, tell us.

[Chrysalis]

that mem cache setting is going to need a fair amount of ram, if you do more than browsing on your box.

I will post back for broadband results when my main pc is back should be tommorow.

[johnleemk]

Not sure whether my connection fails into broadband or dial-up - it ranges from 3kb/s on bad days to 100 kb/s(but it soon drops to 50kb/s). It's judged as ADSL here, but I don't think the Koreans, Singaporeans or almost anybody else in the world with broadband would agree with me.

[PhoenixNostalgia]

Anybody have any settings for broadband that have been thoroughly tested?

[Jeffy729]

I can't really give any good advice on broadband settings, since I couldn't yet try these prefs myself with DSL or faster, but I'd probably start with the following performance related settings:

Code: Select all

user_pref("browser.cache.disk_cache_ssl", true);
user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);
user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5);
user_pref("content.notify.interval", 750000);
user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);
user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 750000);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 48);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 16);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 16);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 8);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 750);

If these settings don't give you an improvement, you could play with the "content." and ".initialpaint.delay" settings. As said above, I got the best results by keeping them in synch as in the given example (750000 and 750) while setting "max.tokenizing.time" to a multiple of "switch.threshold" (greater 3; with the values of the above example: 3 * 750000 = 2250000, 4 * 750000 = 3000000, ...).

If you're not satisfied with a setting and want to reset it to the default, just remove the pref both from user.js and prefs.js while not having Firefox running.

Tried these on Moz 1.6 with DSL (1500/384). Noticable improvement on websites I've tested in the past.