Tech Bitz

We would all like to be able to have our Internet connections work a little better and download a little faster, wouldn’t we? In the next Five Minutes your web browsing speed can improve significantly.

Step 1 - Go to http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ and download the FireFox Browser and follow the simple installation instructions on the website. (This link will open in a new window so that you can keep reading these instructions.)

Step 2 - Open the Firefox browser and go to the Address bar, the one that normally has the http:// and the web addresses at the top of the window. Now type in about:config in the address bar and either press Enter or click on the little green arrow button at the end of the address bar.

Step 3 - Near the top of the page that opens, there is a text box that is labled Filter, now type in that box network.http. The list of items in the page will automatically update, no need to enter or click on anything else right now.

Step 4 - For this part you will be selecting three different items in the list. In order to change the values on the right hand side, all you have to do is double left click on the values listed below.

4a - Double click on the items labeled: network.http.pipelining

After double clicking on the label you should see the value on the right change to: True.

4b - Double click on the items labeled: network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

After double clicking on the label, you should see a pop up box appear that asks you to enter a new value. Type in the number 30.

4c - Double click on the items labeled: network.http.proxy.pipelining

Now the value should read : True.

Step 5 - Close the Firefox web browser window that you have open. Then reopen the browser and go to your favorite website and start enjoying your new and improved speed.

Why This Works: Without boring you too much, the reason why this works is that normally when a web browser downloads information from a website, all the little pieces of the page download one at a time. This little trick opens the floodgates and lets Firefox download multiple little pieces all at the same time.

Its the equivalent of having 1 cash register open in the supermarket, or having 20 open registers, more people/pieces of information can be cashed out/downloaded at the same time. Therefore the pages load a whole lot faster.

Further Notes: The value network.http.pipelining.maxrequests that we had you change earlier in step 2 can be further modified. We had you change it to 30 because it seems to give the best results, with the least possibility of negatively impacting your Internet connection. Because everyones Internet connection/service provider is just a little bit different some people can further experiment with higher numbers.

We have good results on our machines with a value of 100, but your mileage may vary. Start at 30 and work your way up in 10 step increments until you don’t notice any noticeable increase in speed.

While I would like to be able to tell you that this little trick can take an old style dial up Internet connection and make it work like Broadband cable or DSL, unfortunately I can’t. It can help though, and every little bit matters when your cruising the Internet over the phone lines.

With a Broadband connection to the Internet you should see a truly significant speed increase.

Until next time, safe surfing.

Filed under: Firefox, Internet