Making Firefox "Faster"

[Gowerlypuff]

For all those that have noticed that some sites load slow in Firefox, I present you with the solution:

This thread shows what you need to do. Only works properly with BB, but dialup users may notice a slight improvement.

Usual disclaimer about searching and not finding similar thread goes here.

[pc486]

Ah yes, the HTTP pipelining and the paint delay trick. These are great optimizations to use but do use them with care. There is a metric ton behind the reasoning of defaulting HTTP pipelining to off as well as using a paint delay. HTTP pipelining can cause some older web servers to barf or refuse to serve the requested content. This is rare but still happens. The paint delay affects the reflow of pages when rendering them. Using too small of an delay can mess up reflow when not enough of the page is in memory when Firefox starts drawing. If pages start messing up then turn these options back to the default. Personally I have had great success with enabling HTTP pipelining and reducing the paint delay.

[apsmif101]

Good stuff!

[OniNeko]

oh, I thought this thread was going to be about compiling firefox or downloading a pre-compiled one specifically for your architecture.

[UrzaPlanezwalker]

wow, very nice tip, works marvelously. thanks

[TopCat]

i say we get everyone on slashdot to use this tip so we can /. webpages even faster by instead of having 1000 requests from 1000 computers, have 1000 requests from 100 computers!!! gj http pipelining

[sergio]

Or we can tell people firefox will run faster if they avoid going to slashdot at all



No?

Ok then, nice tip! =]

[pc486]

[quote="TopCat";p="440355"]i say we get everyone on slashdot to use this tip so we can /. webpages even faster by instead of having 1000 requests from 1000 computers, have 1000 requests from 100 computers!!! gj http pipelining[/quote]
O.o? HTTP pipelining reduces the number of requests in order to reduce the load and processing needed for pulling up and tearing down extra connections. If anything HTTP pipelining will help reduce the /. effect if a server is not bandwidth limited.

[TopCat]

[quote="pc486";p="440475"][quote="TopCat";p="440355"]i say we get everyone on slashdot to use this tip so we can /. webpages even faster by instead of having 1000 requests from 1000 computers, have 1000 requests from 100 computers!!! gj http pipelining[/quote]
O.o? HTTP pipelining reduces the number of requests in order to reduce the load and processing needed for pulling up and tearing down extra connections. If anything HTTP pipelining will help reduce the /. effect if a server is not bandwidth limited.[/quote]

oh, i thought pipelining made firefox faster by increasing the number of requests

someone help me

[Deacon]

[quote="TopCat";p="440355"]i say we get everyone on slashdot to use this tip so we can /. webpages even faster by instead of having 1000 requests from 1000 computers, have 1000 requests from 100 computers!!! gj http pipelining[/quote]
Wrong.

[quote="pc486";p="440475"]O.o? HTTP pipelining reduces the number of requests in order to reduce the load and processing needed for pulling up and tearing down extra connections. If anything HTTP pipelining will help reduce the /. effect if a server is not bandwidth limited.[/quote]
Mostly right.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/ ... g-faq.html

What is HTTP pipelining?

Normally, HTTP requests are issued sequentially, with the next request being issued only after the response to the current request has been completely received. Depending on network latencies and bandwidth limitations, this can result in a significant delay before the next request is seen by the server.

HTTP/1.1 allows multiple HTTP requests to be written out to a socket together without waiting for the corresponding responses. The requestor then waits for the responses to arrive in the order in which they were requested. The act of pipelining the requests can result in a dramatic improvement in page loading times, especially over high latency connections.

Pipelining can also dramatically reduce the number of TCP/IP packets. With a typical MSS (maximum segment size) of 512 bytes, it is possible to pack several HTTP requests into one TCP/IP packet. Reducing the number of packets required to load a page benefits the internet as a whole, as fewer packets naturally reduces the burden on IP routers and networks.

HTTP/1.1 conforming servers are required to support pipelining. This does not mean that servers are required to pipeline responses, but that they are required to not fail if a client chooses to pipeline requests. This obviously has the potential to introduce a new category of evangelism bugs, since no other popular web browsers implement pipelining.

For more on pipelining, see the URL above.

[BtEO]

[quote="Deacon";p="440492"]

This obviously has the potential to introduce a new category of evangelism bugs, since no other popular web browsers implement pipelining.

[/quote]

I do wish those guys would get their facts straight, it's not the first time I've seen misinformation from them about their competition.

[Deacon]

[quote="BtEO";p="440509"][quote="Deacon";p="440492"]

This obviously has the potential to introduce a new category of evangelism bugs, since no other popular web browsers implement pipelining.

[/quote]

I do wish those guys would get their facts straight, it's not the first time I've seen misinformation from them about their competition.[/quote]
See your mistake?

[TopCat]

[quote="Deacon";p="440527"][quote="BtEO";p="440509"][quote="Deacon";p="440492"]

This obviously has the potential to introduce a new category of evangelism bugs, since no other popular web browsers implement pipelining.

[/quote]

I do wish those guys would get their facts straight, it's not the first time I've seen misinformation from them about their competition.[/quote]
See your mistake? [/quote]

Pipelining - Allowing more than one request from the browser to be sent before receiving a reply from the server (the server MUST always return them in the same order they were sent). This often reduces the page loading times (especially on high latency connections like dial-up and on cache validation), and especially reduces the numbers of packets needed for a page (re)load {3}. Opera pipelines by default - and uses heuristics to control the level of pipelining employed depending on the server Opera is connected to{1}. In Firebird, pipelining is OFF by default and needs to be turned on (see about:config[1]), Firebird also uses some heuristics, especially to turn pipelining OFF for IIS servers. IE doesn't pipeline at all.

I'm too lazy, you, one of you, go replace "Firebird" with "Firefox".

[pc486]

[quote="pc486";p="440475"]O.o? HTTP pipelining reduces the number of requests in order to reduce the load and processing needed for pulling up and tearing down extra connections. If anything HTTP pipelining will help reduce the /. effect if a server is not bandwidth limited.

Mostly right.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/ ... g-faq.html[/quote]
-- SNIP (I've read that FAQ years ago. Besides, that FAQ is glossing over the real speed saving details.) --

The real savings is in the TCP pullup and teardown. To open a TCP socket takes 3 packets: one SYN goes to the server, server responds with SYN/ACK and then client responds with ACK. Only after this handshake does the connection open up for traffic. This is why a single connection to a server can take 250ms before any data transfer on a modem connection. Without pipelining there could a few seconds spent in just setting up the TCP connections necessary for webpage content. 90% of the loading time saved in pipelining is by avoiding excessive TCP handshaking and is the reason why the FAQ states that high latency lines see major benifits.

Pipelining also saves CPU time since handling one TCP connection is much much easier than many at once. Better web server designs (Apache 2.0) and very fast CPUs these days make this less of a problem but a few years ago people would spend a thousand dollars on gigabit ethernet cards like the Adaptec 7711.


Next time before saying I'm wrong do a little bit more real research and less reading of FAQs.

[Deacon]

Your e-penis has, shockingly, failed to overtake your ego in sheer magnitude and raw sensitivity, though lord knows you manufacture any opportunity to stroke both with wild abandon and untamed vigor, apparently to and past the point of chafing.