FireFox Tweak

I came across this simple FireFox hack that makes webpages download @ least 5x faster ; ok maybe 2x. This will work on Linux , Mac , Windows….

Follow these simple instructions,

Speed up page rendering

By default, Firefox doesn’t try to render a web page for 250 milliseconds while it’s waiting for data. If you use about:config to add the Integer preference nglayout.initialpaint.delay, and set the value to 0, Firefox immediately starts to display the page, even without complete data. The drawback, especially on slower machines, is that the total time to display the page will be longer.

Enable Pipelining

Pipelining is an experimental feature, designed to improve page-load performance, that is unfortunately not well supported by some web servers and proxies. To try it out, by using about:config to set the following preferences:

network.http.pipelining

Set this to true, to enable pipelining.

network.http.proxy.pipelining

Set this to true, to enable pipelining to the proxy server.

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Set this to 8, to have a maximum of 8 pipelining requests at once. Possible values are from 1 to 8.

For more information about pipelining, read the HTTP/1.1 Pipelining FAQ.

Specify where to store the cache

To specify in which folder the cache is stored, use about:config to add the String preference browser.cache.disk.parent_directory, and set the value to C:\Path To Cache.Replace Path To Cache with the actual path to your cache folder.

Specify the memory cache usage

Normally, Firefox determines the memory cache usage dynamically based on the amount of available memory. To specify a specific amount of memory cache, use about:config to add the Intefer preference browser.cache.memory.capacity, and set the value:

-1

(default) Determine the amount of memory cache dynamically.

0

None.

n

Memory capacity in kilobytes. For example: 4096.

To disable the memory cache completely, use about:config to set the preference browser.cache.memory.enable to false.

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Kiosk Browser

Andrew Mutch has written a comprehensive tutorial that explains how to modify Firefox to run in a kiosk-style mode. Read all about this here.

Limit Firefox to specific web addresses

Many libraries are now providing web-based online catalogs and access to online databases. Often, libraries don’t want computers provided for those uses to have access to the entire Internet. This method will assist you in limiting Firefox access to a pre-defined number of sites.Restricting web access is accomplished by using the proxy settings in Firefox. Read all about how to accomplish this on this page, written by Andrew Mutch.

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View page source using an external program

If you want to view the HTML source of a web page using an external text editor instead of the built-in source viewer in Firefox, use about:config to set view_source.editor.external to true, and then set view_source.editor.path to e.g. C:\Windows\Notepad.exe or whatever is your preferred text editor.