Firefox Tuning

Discussion of features in Mozilla Firefox
Locked
User avatar
laszlo
Posts: 5225
Joined: November 4th, 2002, 6:13 pm
Location: .de
Contact:

Post by laszlo »

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.
User avatar
BenBasson
Moderator
Posts: 13671
Joined: February 13th, 2004, 5:49 am
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Post by BenBasson »

I'm running your settings now on 768/128k (or something) cable... it's pretty fast, but I cant say that any of it makes a considerable difference to load performance with my combination of cable modem and a 2.4ghz... Maybe a little. I already had pipelining on before though, but none of the other stuff.
Colin Ramsay
Posts: 637
Joined: December 7th, 2002, 12:42 pm
Location: Gateshead, UK
Contact:

Post by Colin Ramsay »

laszlo: thanks man.
http://colinramsay.ath.cx - Mozilla, CSS, .NET
User avatar
laszlo
Posts: 5225
Joined: November 4th, 2002, 6:13 pm
Location: .de
Contact:

Post by laszlo »

Cusser wrote:I'm running your settings now on 768/128k (or something) cable... it's pretty fast, but I cant say that any of it makes a considerable difference to load performance with my combination of cable modem and a 2.4ghz... Maybe a little. I already had pipelining on before though, but none of the other stuff.

With a low latency / high bandwidth connection and a fast system I wouldn't expect really dramatic improvements during normal surfing. When a page is loaded and rendered from scratch in less than 1 second, you won't notice much of a difference. The improvements in such a scenario will probably be mainly in larger, more complex pages. Well, at least it didn't get worse, obviously. ;)

Colin Ramsay wrote:laszlo: thanks man.

You're welcome. Did you see an improvement?
User avatar
BenBasson
Moderator
Posts: 13671
Joined: February 13th, 2004, 5:49 am
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Post by BenBasson »

Just a quick point... if you wanna test a "real world" site that appears to load slowly, try http://www.kingsofchaos.com ... my god that's slow (well, it's the only site that I've noticed being slow).
User avatar
Gonzilla
Posts: 199
Joined: September 8th, 2003, 2:45 am

Post by Gonzilla »

Moderator, why not make this topic a sticky? Seems that lots of users have reaped the benefits :)
viper208
Posts: 4
Joined: June 18th, 2003, 1:36 am

Post by viper208 »

laszlo wrote: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.




This works even better for me ! WOW !

Thanks man ! :D
User avatar
rfrangioni77
Posts: 1510
Joined: January 5th, 2004, 1:48 am
Location: Bumdumbourge, near Totalslava
Contact:

Post by rfrangioni77 »

GREAT stuff, laszlo. I noticed an improvement with this setup here:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8
Running on a 2.6ghz P4-M with 512mb RAM, using a wireless 640/256 connection. There <i>seemed</i> to be an even more noticeable improvement with the same build running on the desktop, which is a P4 3.0 with a gig of DDR400. Me rikey MUCHO!!

On such a flaky connection, any increase in speed, rendering or otherwise, is welcome.

This is the kind of stuff I plug when talking to people about Firefox. Not only the features and performance, but input like this from the community. Thanks, man! =)
This post has been scanned with Edgarware™
Lost User 15175
Posts: 0
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Lost User 15175 »

Here's a question; how do I speed up bookmark rendering. My submenus have a delay before they render. It doesn't have to do with the Fav icons. I have them disabled completely.
User avatar
laszlo
Posts: 5225
Joined: November 4th, 2002, 6:13 pm
Location: .de
Contact:

Post by laszlo »

Try this setting:

user_pref("ui.submenuDelay", 0);

If this doesn't help, what are your system specs?
"I'll be dead after I die. I was dead before I was born. Life is a break from death." - Hlynur, 101 Reykjavík
User avatar
Nitin
Moderator
Posts: 3483
Joined: February 27th, 2003, 9:38 pm
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Post by Nitin »

Good candidate for FAQ

marking sticky until David Tenser sees it..
If you're not using Firefox, you're not surfing the web, you're suffering it.
Join the MZ folding@home team.
User avatar
kerz
mozillaZine Admin
Posts: 1804
Joined: November 4th, 2002, 2:04 pm
Contact:

Post by kerz »

This would be great stuff to add to the knowledge base if someone wants to do so!

jason
TheOneKEA
Posts: 4864
Joined: October 16th, 2003, 5:47 am
Location: Somewhere in London, riding the Underground

Post by TheOneKEA »

Thanks for the new settings!

I'd add this to the Knowledge Base myself but I think that since laszlo put it together so nicely in the first page, he should do the honors ;)
Proud user of teh Fox of Fire
Registered Linux User #289618
User avatar
laszlo
Posts: 5225
Joined: November 4th, 2002, 6:13 pm
Location: .de
Contact:

Post by laszlo »

OK, I'll add it to the knowledge base over the weekend. I already thought of doing so, I just wanted to know first if others get a similar improvement out of these settings like I did. :)
"I'll be dead after I die. I was dead before I was born. Life is a break from death." - Hlynur, 101 Reykjavík
User avatar
wildman
Posts: 222
Joined: June 20th, 2003, 12:20 pm
Location: Florida

Post by wildman »

Hya laslo some great tips here! Could y'all look at the following & recommend some Download Manger Tweaks?

Firebird's got a new download manager! Help testing!
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 718#380718
...
3) I also changed some of the Delay settings & left the DM window open, as multiple open/close operations seemed to consume memory exponentially. This could have been related to problems I had installing some extensions, not sure.

Code: Select all

about:config   (filter: download)
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
Locked