Speed up Your Connection in 30 Seconds!

[ticktockclok]

1) Type about:config into the address bar.
2) Type "pipelining" into the "Filter" entry area.
3) Double click on network.http.pipelining to set it to true.
4) Double click on network.http.proxy.pipelining to set it to true.
5) Double click on network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and set it to 30.

It won't speed up your connection, but you will load pages must faster. I don't know if this works in Internet Explorer or Opera, since I'm doing this in Firefox. There probably is a way to do it, however.

Try it out!

[Akashic_Librarian]

hey thats cool. I can't seem to get it to work on Opera. If someone could help with this I would appreciate it.

[Adam]

That is a Firefox only trick, unfortunately.

It doesn't work for people with dialup connections (the default pipeline max-requests is 5 or 10, which is the maximum that a dialup connection can handle), but people with faster connections than a typical DSL/Cable connection can boost this number even higher than 30... but if you're already faster than DSL, then you don't really need to worry about page load speeds, now do you?

I don't know if these types of settings are available to people running Opera or other browsers, but it is very unlikely that anybody will be able to get to these settings by using About:Config. These settings are completely unavailable to anyone using Internet Explorer or any other browser using the Trident engine.

[Lucas]

If you are scared to manually edit it, the FasterFox extension enables these and a few more, as well as a prefetching option.

[gberardi]

Originally Posted by ticktockclok

1)
It won't speed up your connection, but you will load pages must faster. I don't know if this works in Internet Explorer or Opera, since I'm doing this in Firefox. There probably is a way to do it, however.

Try it out!

I would be careful. I remember when I first heard about similar speed tricks and was warned that it can actually put a huge load on the server, which would make me a poor netizen.

[Minsc]

Originally Posted by Adam

These settings are completely unavailable to anyone using Internet Explorer

They're in the registry somewhere(they're different settings but they speed up the connection).

IE Registry Tweaks | the scream !
And here's a program: SpeedGuide.net :: TCP Optimizer / Downloads
Hacking Windows XP: Speed Up Your Network and Internet Connection: Increasing network browsing speed

[Reyv]

Opera does it by default.
Firefox can do it, but is disabled by default.
IE can't do it.

Opera pipelines by default - and uses heuristics to control the level of pipelining employed depending on the server Opera is connected to. In Firefox, pipelining is OFF by default and needs to be turned on (see about:config[1]), Firefox also uses some heuristics, especially to turn pipelining OFF for IIS servers. IE doesn't pipeline at all.

Source: Opera Browser Wiki :: The HTTP/1.1 Protocol

[Baltar]

You need to be careful with those and other related settings. Here's some info from the Firefox Tweak Guide.

network.http.pipelining [Boolean] (True) - If set to True, this setting uses the HTTP Pipelining feature supported by some servers and proxies. This can improve browsing speeds, however because the feature is not supported by all servers you may experience problems on some sites with it enabled. I recommend setting this to True and only disabling it if you experience problems such as refused connections or unusual behavior.

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests [Integer] (8) - This setting determines the maximum number of requests to send when using the HTTP Pipelining feature (see above). The default is 4, and the maximum possible is 8 (higher values are ignored), while a value of 1 disables pipelining. I recommend setting this to 8 and only reducing it back to 4 if you experience any problems with the Pipelining feature.

network.http.max-connections-per-server [Integer] (16) - This setting determines how many simultaneous connections can be made to a single server. The default is 8, however you can increase the value for broadband connections to something like 16 or 32 to attempt to increase browsing speed. The maximum is 255, however note that raising this setting to a high value (in conjunction with a high value for the network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-.* settings below) may be construed as a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack by some servers and your connection may be refused or even permanently banned. I strongly suggest that you keep this value sane. Simply increasing the number of connections to a server doesn't necessarily make things any faster, and indeed if every Firefox user does this then overall most sites will become slower.

network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server [Integer] (8) - If you are not connected to a proxy, this setting determines how many connections to a single server to keep alive at any time. The default is 2, however you can attempt a higher value such as 8 to improve browsing efficiency. The maximum possible is 255, and as mentioned in the settings above, raising this to a very high value will put stress on the particular websites you are connected to and will either result in a refused connection, or slower response times from the web page for every person trying to connect to it. Do not raise this value to one which is very high as it is inconsiderate and counter-productive if everyone does so.