Firefox Extensions and tweaks

I'll get back to you on this Imp as I'm halfway through making dinner for the wife and I.
Wolfey

EDIT:
Ok basically it tweaks automatically, have a look;

2.) What does FireTune do?

Instead of changing all relevant preferences of FireFox manually as described in the TweakFactor tweaking guide for FireFox, you can use FireTune to automatically apply all the configuration changes to FireFox.

Known problems:

Some users of FireTune reported, that after running an optimization on Firefox with FireTune, all their extensions were disabled, cookies were cleared etc. We were not able to reproduce this problem on our machines. However - you should always create a backup of your configuration file BEFORE any optimization is applied in case something goes wrong, so that you can restore your settings easily.

3.) How to tell whether Firefox is faster after optimizing it

There's a simple way to tell whether Firefox works faster after optimizing it with FireTune. Just follow these instructions:

· Clear the cache of Firefox from the Firefox settings dialog - this is very important!

· Before you optimize Firefox, navigate to Stopwatch and do a speed test on Firefox - Rediscover the Web

· The time needed to load the site completely will be displayed to you in the browser window. Write down the time

· Clear the cache of Firefox from the Firefox settings dialog again - this is very important!

· Now, close Firefox, and optimize it with FireTune

· Start Firefox again, and repeat the speed test on Firefox - Rediscover the Web

· Compare the displayed result with the result from the test before the optimization





On our testmachine we noticed a speed improvement of 1.25 seconds - the loadtime was 3.99 seconds before optimizations, and 2.74 seconds after optimization.

4.) What changes are applied by FireTune?

Performance Settings

One of the limitations of pretty much all computer applications is the need to target for a general audience because of the wide array of computer components and varied network infrastructure. This is where tweaking comes in. Firefox by default is aimed at a general audience too and hopefully we can tune it more to the needs of theindividual. The majority of the information comes from this excellent thread over at the MozillaZine Forum. The first post in particular goes through in great detail what each of the settings do. The thread however gets fairly long and convoluted and we attempt to summarize the contents of this thread along with a couple other sources into something that is easier to digest. As with the settings on the previous page, the contents are copied into the user.js file. We do not go into major detail about the setting as the thread goes into detailed explanations of what the settings mean in the first post. Instead, the configurations are culled from the thread of what people have reported to have worked for them along with some modifications on our end.

Quick and Dirty Settings (part of the tweaks further below)

user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.firstrequest", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0);

Pipelining does multiple data requests at once and should speed things up. I believe IE did this before and this was partially attributable to the speed advantage that IE had over older versions of Mozilla/Netscape. Initial Paint Delay actually slows down the rendering of the ENTIRE page but since users tend to start reading before the entire page is rendered, setting this to a low value gives the impression that the page loads faster.

The following configurations are based off of recommendations off of the Mozillazine thread with some editing.

These are the settings that seem to be common to all configuration files regardless of connection speed or computer speed with a couple of additions - plugin paths can be found with about:plugins and the bookmark menu delay is turned off.

user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8);
user_pref("network.http.request.max-start-delay", 0);
user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5);
user_pref("plugin.expose_full_path", true);
user_pref("ui.submenuDelay", 0);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0);

Fast Computer, Fast Connection:

Definitions:

Fast Computer: is a machine with a CPU greater than 1.5Ghz and with memory installed of at least 512MB RAM

Fast Connection: is a DSL, cable or a better connection




According to the above, 'Slower' connections means slower DSL or cable connections as well as double line ISDN connections,

and 'Slow' means all other analog modem connections.



A 'Slow' computer is a computer with a CPU slower than 1.5Ghz, and with less memory than 512MB RAM.



user_pref("content.interrupt.parsing", true);
user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);
user_pref("content.notify.interval", 750000);
user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);
user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 750000);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0);
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("browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536);

A couple settings of note - Firefox is allocated 4096 KB of memory by default and in this configuration we give it roughly 65MB as denoted by the last line. This can be changed according to what is used.

Fast Computer, Slower Connection:

This configuration is more suited to people without ultra fast connections. We are talking about slower DSL / Cable connections as well as double line ISDN connections.

user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);
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("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0);
user_pref("browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536);

Fast Computer, Slow Connection:

Slow connection means connections through an analog 57k modem or slower.

user_pref("browser.xul.error_pages.enabled", true);
user_pref("content.interrupt.parsing", true);
user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 3000000);
user_pref("content.maxtextrun", 8191);
user_pref("content.notify.interval", 750000);
user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);
user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 750000);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 32);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 8);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 8);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 4);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0);
user_pref("browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536);

Slow Computer, Fast Connection:

user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 3000000);
user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5);
user_pref("content.notify.interval", 1000000);
user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);
user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 1000000);
user_pref("content.maxtextrun", 4095);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 1000);
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("dom.disable_window_status_change", true);

One of the changes made for this particular configuration is the final line where the status bar is disabled for changing web pages to save processor time.

Slow Computer, Slow Connection:

We have entered the doldrums of the dial-up user

user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);
user_pref("content.notify.interval", 750000);
user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);
user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 750000);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 750);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 32);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 8);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 8);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 4);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_status_change", true);

Some of the options we chose not to include as opposed to suggestions on the Mozillazine threads included the suggestion of catching SSL pages. Regardless of computer speed, one of the common trends is that pipelining is a good thing. Those with faster computers and gobs of memory may want to up the amount of memory available to Firefox while those with slower computers can still increase the default 4MB to something higher. This was not done in our configuration files however. Powerusers are also welcome to disable the status bar to eek out thatextra CPU cycle or two.

Fly Windows NT: All the passengers carry their seats out onto the tarmac, placing the chairs in the outline of a plane. They all sit down, flap their arms and make jet swooshing sounds as if they are flying.

Dear intel,Already Made My Decision
Never trust a computer you can't repair yourself.
Windows Vista - Viruses Intruders Spyware Trojans Adware
Why Linux is Better!|Pastafairianism|Say no to National ID|Firefox Extensions Guide
scientology has been getting alot of attention recently

When the rich wage war, it is the poor who die.
Where are the WMD's that our governments used to justify the war?

Originally Posted by Anti-Trend One important thing to note about Firefox plugins: only use trustworthy, well-written plugins! Plugins are essentially small programs, and like any programs, they are only as good as the quality of their underlying code. If there are memory leaks, bugs, etc. Firefox may be slow, or crash, or even cause your desktop to crash. 99% of Firefox problems I hear about are actually caused by naughty plugins, so keep that in mind when troubleshooting crashes or slowdowns.

Dear intel,Already Made My Decision
Never trust a computer you can't repair yourself.
Windows Vista - Viruses Intruders Spyware Trojans Adware
Why Linux is Better!|Pastafairianism|Say no to National ID|Firefox Extensions Guide
scientology has been getting alot of attention recently

When the rich wage war, it is the poor who die.
Where are the WMD's that our governments used to justify the war?

Dear intel,Already Made My Decision
Never trust a computer you can't repair yourself.
Windows Vista - Viruses Intruders Spyware Trojans Adware
Why Linux is Better!|Pastafairianism|Say no to National ID|Firefox Extensions Guide
scientology has been getting alot of attention recently

When the rich wage war, it is the poor who die.
Where are the WMD's that our governments used to justify the war?