8 hacks to make Firefox ridiculously fast

1. Enable pipelining
Browsers are normally very polite, sending a request to a server then waiting for a
response before continuing. Pipelining is a more aggressive technique that lets them
send multiple requests before any responses are received, often reducing page download
times. To enable it, type about:config in the address bar, double-click
network.http.pipelining and network.http.proy.pipelining so their values are set to true,
then double-click network.http.pipelining.marequests and set this to !.
"eep in mind that some servers don#t support pipelining, though, and if you regularly
visit a lot of these then the tweak can actually reduce performance. $et
network.http.pipelining and network.http.proy.pipelining to false again if you have any
problems.
2. Render quickly
%arge, comple web pages can take a while to download. &irefo doesn#t want to keep
you waiting, so by default will display what it#s received so far every '.() seconds *the
+content notify interval+,. -hile this helps the browser feel snappy, frequent redraws
increase the total page load time, so a longer content notify interval will improve
performance.
Type about:config and press ./nter0, then right-click *1pple users ctrl-click, somewhere
in the window and select 2ew 3 4nteger. Type content.notify.interval as your preference
name, click 5", enter 6''''' *that#s five hundred thousand, not fifty thousand, and
click 5" again.
7ight-click again in the window and select 2ew 3 Boolean. This time create a value
called content.notify.ontimer and set it to True to finish the 8ob.
3. Faster loading
4f you haven#t moved your mouse or touched the keyboard for '.96 seconds *the content
switch threshold, then &irefo enters a low frequency interrupt mode, which means its
interface becomes less responsive but your page loads more quickly. 7educing the
content switch threshold can improve performance, then, and it only takes a moment.
Type about:config and press ./nter0, right-click in the window and select 2ew 3 4nteger.
Type content.switch.threshold, click 5", enter )6'''' *a quarter of a second, and click
5" to finish.
. !o interruptions
:ou can take the last step even further by telling &irefo to ignore user interface events
altogether until the current page has been downloaded. This is a little drastic as &irefo
could remain unresponsive for quite some time, but try this and see how it works for
you.
Type about:config, press ./nter0, right-click in the window and select 2ew 3 Boolean.
Type content.interrupt.parsing, click 5", set the value to &alse and click 5".
". #lock Flash
4ntrusive &lash animations are everywhere, popping up over the content you actually
want to read and slowing down your browsing. &ortunately there#s a very easy solution.
4nstall the &lashblock etension *flashblock.mo;dev.org, and it#ll block all &lash applets
from loading, so web pages will display much more quickly. 1nd if you discover some
&lash content that isn#t entirely useless, 8ust click its placeholder to download and view
the applet as normal.
$. %ncrease the cache si&e
1s you browse the web so &irefo stores site images and scripts in a local memory
cache, where they can be speedily retrieved if you revisit the same page. 4f you have
plenty of 71< *) =B of more,, leave &irefo running all the time and regularly return
to pages then you can improve performance by increasing this cache si;e. Type
about:config and press ./nter0, then right-click anywhere in the window and select 2ew
3 4nteger. Type browser.cache.memory.capacity, click 5", enter >66?> and click 5",
then restart your browser to get the new, larger cache.
'. Enable (race)onkey
Trace<onkey is a new &irefo feature that converts slow 8avascript into super-speedy
!> code, and so lets it run some functions anything up to )' times faster than the
current version. 4t#s still buggy so isn#t available in the regular &irefo download yet, but
if you#re willing to risk the odd crash or two then there#s an easy way to try it out.
4nstall the latest nightly build *ftp:@@ftp.mo;illa.org@pub@firefo@nightly@latest-trunk@,,
launch it, type about:config in the address bar and press /nter. Type A4T in the filter bo,
then double-click 8avascript.options.8it.chrome and 8avascript.options.8it.content to
change their values to true, and that#s it - you#re running the fastest &irefo 8avascript
engine ever.
8. *ompress data
4f you#ve a slow internet connection then it may feel like you#ll never get &irefo to
perform properly, but that#s not necessarily true. 4nstall toonel.net *toonel.net, and this
clever Aava applet will re-route your web traffic through its own server, compressing it at
the same time, so there#s much less to download. 1nd it can even compress AP/=s by
allowing you to reduce their quality. This all helps to cut your data transfer, useful if
you#re on a limited ( =B-per-month account, and can at best double your browsing
performance.