Firefox Browser Tip

[Rudy]

Here's a tip that will speed up Firefox for Broadband users:

1. In the addres bar, type "about:config" (w/o the quotes).
2. Scroll down and look for these entries:
   
   network.http.pipelining
   network.http.proxy.pipelining
   network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
   
3. Change the entries as follows:
   
   Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true" (double-click the line)
   
   Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true" (double-click the line)
   
   Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to a higher number--try 32.
   
4. Finally, right-click anywhere and select New -> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set the value to "0".

What you're doing here is telling the browser to make up to 32 requests at a time to load a page, vs. one request at a time. So basically, your browser wil download separate images and text simultaneously, and your pages will load much faster. Find a graphics-heavy page (perhaps an Amazon page, or eBay) and see how it loads. I find that Firefox without this tweak loads pages faster than Internet Explorer; this tweak just buries IE completely.

This will only work well for broadband users though--dialup does not have sufficient bandwidth to download simultaneous items.

[/list]

Download Firefox here: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

 

[Murray]

Excellent tip Rudy! I only have "light" DSL (256k download speed), so I set the maximum requests to 8, rather than the 32 that you suggested. Pages load much faster than they did before! THANKS!!!

Murray

 

[Rudy]

Cool! I haven't noticed it TOO much faster, but I'm only hitting a couple of sites tonight, making my rounds. Amazon seems to be a bit faster.

 

[Mr Bill]

Once again I feel that despite being technically savvy (at least as far as video/computer tech stuff goes) I am behind the power curve... in other words "What the Heck is FireFox?"

--Mr Bill

 

[Rudy]

Link in my post above--it's a new web browser, A lot safer than IE, which I've just about quit using. Got tired of all the pop-ups, ActiveX spyware installers, JavaScript vulnerabilities, constant security updates, etc. And it loads pages a lot faster even before the tweak above. Plus now that I used tabbed browsing, IE is just about unusable to me.

 

[seashorepiano]

Does anyone have any recommendations for Safari (on Mac OS X and higher) users? I agree completely with you, Rudy; tabbed browsing really brings convenience to the max, and renders less integrated, 'friendly' browsers like IE almost useless.

 

[Rudy]

I don't know how Safari is configured, but I believe Firefox is available for OS X users. (I know I have a FreeBSD version on my *nix computer.)

I did try a tabbed front-end for IE, but it just made the whole thing run slower. Firefox just seems so much more snappy in comparison. I never did like the actual Mozilla browser, and Netscape 7.x was based on that Mozilla version as well...but Firefox finally seems to get it right most of the time.

 

[Mr Bill]

I must check this out...

I also need to get the Mrs a different email program. She gets about a dozen viri a day! She's convinced a new program will require her to get a new email address and I canNOT convince her otherwise (Help!)...

--Mr Bill

 

[andywithaz]

The only problem that I have found using Firefox is that a lot of sites especially Yahoo sub-sites don't support Firefox. I'm sure they will work this out in the future, but in the meantime I must use IE or MSN's browser.

 

[Rudy]

Yeah, I still hit the occasional IE-only site, but I make sure I complain to their tech department. Unless the site is a complete Microsoft shop (MS server, using ASP), they'll get the hint. They just can't assume everyone uses IE...Firefox is spreading, and more users are using it. In fact, I complained once at Circuit City back when I used Netscape. Just basically told them they lost a sale because their site didn't work with it. I did get a reply back, but don't recall what they said. Bottom line is: developers are supposed to develop to web *standards*, not to individual web *browsers*.

Mr Bill: the folks at Mozilla also have an e-mail client. I believe it is linked on the main Firefox page I posted a link to above. Yeah, heh, she will be able to keep the same e-mail address.

 

[Dave]

(Bump!)

My soon-to-be-wife's computer also has this "(Mozilla) Firefox" feature...

So far, thanks to a Comcast DSL installation, it seems to be out-running my folks' computer with a "Basic AOL" hook-up...

None-the-less, I'll turn to this, should any "outt'a the ordinary troubles" to this, right now, perfect system ever come up...!



Dave

...Who's right now using Her computer, more than She is...!!!

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

Does anyone have any recommendations for Safari (on Mac OS X and higher) users? I agree completely with you, Rudy; tabbed browsing really brings convenience to the max, and renders less integrated, 'friendly' browsers like IE almost useless.

IE's not even available for Intel-based Macs anymore. I use Safari regularly and I don't have any speed issues that need tweaking. Do you?

Ed

 

[Harry]

Of course since this thread's heyday, Internet Explorer's version 7 introduced the vaunted "tabbed browsing" feature, along with Phishing filters, etc.

Harry

 

[Rudy]

Does anyone have any recommendations for Safari (on Mac OS X and higher) users? I agree completely with you, Rudy; tabbed browsing really brings convenience to the max, and renders less integrated, 'friendly' browsers like IE almost useless.

IE's not even available for Intel-based Macs anymore. I use Safari regularly and I don't have any speed issues that need tweaking. Do you?

Ed

It's not a huge speed difference, but "pipelining" lets you open more than one data connection to a server, so while your bandwidth might be split in, say, four pieces, it does tend to make a page compose faster. I have throttled my setting back a bit, to "play nice" with other servers out there. I do have a good inbound connection, so most sites seem to load quite snappy.

Of course since this thread's heyday, Internet Explorer's version 7 introduced the vaunted "tabbed browsing" feature, along with Phishing filters, etc.

The one thing that's sort of amusing in all this: IE7 has finally caught up to where the Mozilla browsers were two years ago. The phishing filter, I've heard, slows down IE considerably, since it has to contact a third party server to verify the site. So, that's an understandable slowdown--it's not so much the browser itself, but a background operation it's waiting for.

IE6 is still on my development computer since IE7 is not in a majority (and IE6 is problematic for developers like myself, in terms of layout issues), but another computer here has IE7 and I'm starting to get more familiar with it.

Can't lived w/o tabbed browsing here. My current Firefox window has 23 tabs open in it. When I'm working on larger projects, I'll have all the tabs open for that project in a separate Firefox window (half a dozen tabs or more). I've also customized the search bar, and have it open up a new tab with the results so I don't have to do it manually. External links also open in new tabs vs. opening a new window.

I can recommend two "must-have" plugins for Firefox. AdBlock Plus gets rid of banner ads and most other forms of web advertising. Filters can be automatically updated daily, and you can disable it on any site you choose. Makes browsing a lot cleaner.

The other plug-in: IETab. It lets you open up a web page in a tab using Internet Explorer. It's handy: when you hit the occasional site that requires IE, you just click on a small icon in the lower right corner to "switch rendering engine". (Left-click, and it reloads the current tab in IE middle-click opens the same page in IE, but in a new tab.) It also has a feature where you can set up a list of sites which you want to always open using an IE tab. It does require that IE be installed, as it uses IE's rendering engine, but it is compatible with both IE6 and IE7.

 

[Andrew T.]

Of course since this thread's heyday, Internet Explorer's version 7 introduced the vaunted "tabbed browsing" feature, along with Phishing filters, etc.

Yep, with version 7 Internet Explorer became relatively up-to-date in terms of features. Good luck running it on anything but Windows XP SP2 and Vista, though!

IE6 is still on my development computer since IE7 is not in a majority (and IE6 is problematic for developers like myself, in terms of layout issues), but another computer here has IE7 and I'm starting to get more familiar with it.

It's possible to run IE 5 and IE 6 on the same computer with a little hacking. I'd assume it's possible to do that with 6 and 7 as well, although the exact procedure could be different.

I tend to go easy with extension plugins: Some of them (or too many of them) can slow the browser down to a crawl. Right now I'm limited to Chatzilla (an IRC client) and something called phpBB User Hide.

Personally I've been using Netscape/Mozilla browsers continuously, since before Microsoft belatedly acknowledged the web existed. Even if IE were the better browser, I'm not sure I'd have the conscience to use it: The whole anti-trust thing left a bad taste in my mouth.

As for the original tip: It still works like a charm at reducing or eliminating drag, especially when opening up a series of links in new tabs.

 

[Rudy]

It's possible to run IE 5 and IE 6 on the same computer with a little hacking. I'd assume it's possible to do that with 6 and 7 as well, although the exact procedure could be different.

I found out that MS actually has an "XP virtual machine" that you can download for free, which runs IE6. So I could update my computer to IE7 quite easily, then use that virtual machine for IE6 testing. At least IE7 is more standards-compliant (in terms of CSS, style sheets IOW). I usually get my sites laid out with Firefox and, in most cases, Opera renders it exactly the same. But then I'm having to do workarounds to make the page render properly in IE6, which is notorious for NOT being standards-compliant. I don't bother checking with other Mozilla browsers since they've historically used the same, or a similar, rendering engine, and my sites have always looked the same in Firefox as it has in the others.

I tend to go easy with extension plugins: Some of them (or too many of them) can slow the browser down to a crawl.

I only have a few active. I had Firebug that was helpful with debugging, but it really slowed down Firefox and caused other problems. I do have a couple of others, but they are only interface changes and, therefore, don't use any resources. I use the "Resize Search Box" plugin so I can drag the search box to a more usable length, and a "Duplicate Tab" plug-in so I can open the existing tab in a second tab, or a new window. I have a handful that are disabled that I should really uninstall, as I have no intention of using them again.

BTW, I've been playing with the LiveCD distributions of Ubuntu (with the Gnome interface) and Kubuntu (which is the same OS, but uses the KDE interface). Ubuntu has Firefox installed, and it's nice to see a familiar face there. Kubuntu makes use of Konqueror which, in its latest version, seems to be compliant to web standards much as the others are. Earlier Konqueror versions I've tried haven't been all that good, but IMHO, they've really made some good progress. I could easily recommend either Ubuntu or Kubuntu (and others that are similar) as a Windows alternative: the install CDs run smoothly, and they come with a full complement of software. With the LiveCD, I've been able to boot from the CDs and try these without having to install them.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Bottom line is: developers are supposed to develop to web *standards*, not to individual web *browsers*.

That's one of my pet peeves with film-tech.com, one of my other favorite sites. On their FAQ page, it says the site is developed for Firefox or Opera...period. That's followed by a rather snippy "If you have a problem with another browser, we don't want to hear about it" kind of thing. I use IE myself (6 or 7 depending on what machine I'm sitting at) and can't say I've ever had a problem with any site I've visited, including that one, but that attitude is not really good for a public site.

 

[Harry]

There's so much blind rage and hate for Microsoft in some quarters.

:|

Harry

 

[Rudy]

Bottom line is: developers are supposed to develop to web *standards*, not to individual web *browsers*.

That's one of my pet peeves with film-tech.com, one of my other favorite sites. On their FAQ page, it says the site is developed for Firefox or Opera...period. That's followed by a rather snippy "If you have a problem with another browser, we don't want to hear about it" kind of thing. I use IE myself (6 or 7 depending on what machine I'm sitting at) and can't say I've ever had a problem with any site I've visited, including that one, but that attitude is not really good for a public site.

There's a reason for it: there are many developers out there who are sloppy, and develop things mainly for IE...all the others be damned. In other words, they're too clueless or lazy to code websites to web standards, and just throw a page together that renders well in IE, but looks bad in other browsers. A browser is just supposed to be a generic application, and the W3 Consortium has, since the early days of the web, recommended that all browsers conform to standards. IE's rendition of the W3 recommendations is notoriously sloppy; IE7 at least moved toward fixing the majority of the problems. But, IE6 is still in the majority. So, the few sites out there that make claims like Film-Tech are just saying their sites conform to web standards, and that they're not going to bend over backwards to fudge their content to work around IE's quirks. Can't say I blame them: it's usually a web standards vs. an IE6 quirk that puts a snag in everything I do. Wastes my time, and wastes the client's money having to pay me to do the extra work.

Also, other sites use ActiveX rather than more commonly available technologies, so they're basically forcing their users to use one specific product. But if you are a business, would you want to exclude a good portion of possible customers by requiring them to use a browser they have either chosen not to use, or are completely incapable of using? The world does not revolve solely around Windows or MS products. There are a growing number of *nix users out there, and Mac users as well, who can't even run IE on their computers. Would you want to exclude them? Certainly not. Coding to standards takes a little more work, but not much. Basically, if you built a site around IE6's quirks, you're going to have to redo a lot to make it conform to web standards; by the same token, if you conform to web standards, workarounds for IE6 are much easier to implement.

I just think many users, such as myself, are tired of being rejected at sites that choose not to cater to everyone, but only to IE users. If they don't want our business, fine...we'll go elsewhere. From day one, I've always tried to accomodate everyone.

(And I'm sitting here replying to this while running Firefox in Ubuntu Linux... )

 

[Mike Blakesley]

So how does that work with Front Page? Does it conform to web specs? I would think so... That's the software I use to do the Roxy website. Of course there is nothing fancy on those pages...just text & pics. Not even any frames, except on the movie-calendar pages.

 

[Rudy]

Front Page is...well, to put it nicely, it's not even close. However, it's based on really old coding styles, and really hadn't been updated in many years. (The interface was updated over the years, but not the underlying code it generated for sites.) With simple text/photos, it would probably do OK. But, I worked on a site that a client of mine had already done in Front Page. She wanted a zipcode search added. Thing is, the code was so bad that I basically had to build a new site from scratch just to get it to lay out properly. Plus, she was using spacing to align elements, which fit the browser on her computer just fine, but was all over the place in mine.

Best bet: download a copy of Firefox and/or Opera, and use them to check your site. If your layouts look about the same in both, then don't worry about it.

Newer sites are gravitating toward using CSS (cascading style sheets) for layout, vs. using tables as most sites have done in the past. It's been an uphill battle, but a proper design just behaves so much better in the browser, and elements are rock solid. The tijuanabrass.com site is powered by Wordpress, and uses CSS for most of its layout. With very minor differences, it looks pretty much the same in all browsers.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Plus, she was using spacing to align elements, which fit the browser on her computer just fine, but was all over the place in mine.

Oooooh. I am about 1 on a scale of 10 when it comes to web design, but even I know better than to do that!

I have a friend who used to use Word Perfect. She would always hammer the spacebar and/or the Enter key to center things. Drove me nuts watching.

 

[Rudy]

Plus, she was using spacing to align elements, which fit the browser on her computer just fine, but was all over the place in mine.

Oooooh. I am about 1 on a scale of 10 when it comes to web design, but even I know better than to do that!

That whole site was a trainwreck. She took pride that she could update the site herself, but didn't realize that it looked nasty in some other users' browsers.

I have a friend who used to use Word Perfect. She would always hammer the spacebar and/or the Enter key to center things. Drove me nuts watching.

Funny, too, because spacing only works with monospace fonts. In TrueType fonts, the space character is much narrower than others. And there's no guarantee that what you see on the screen is what you'll get on the printer. And all it takes is a line break to throw everything off!

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

I finally updated my IE from 6 to 7 just the other day, still getting use to the tabs and favorites new location buttons and stuff, it does seem to be a little faster browsing than with IE6. I does look cleaner too and makes my 19' monitor looks ever larger viewing area. So far I like it, should have done it long time ago but I hate messing with my PC everytime I do any updates I mess something up. Thank goodness I never have any problems with Windows Update since I set it for auto updates it just does everything on it's own.

Since my PC hardrive is about 6 yrs old I'm finding with windows XP that it seems to take forever to re-boot my system or do a re-start, it works..just seems to take longer than when I first got it. I guess there are no updates for Windows XP, the XP that came with my system was from 2001. I would imagine any updates to XP would come from those auto updates through windows which it does auto and then tells me to do a restart.

I'd like to get a new PC in a few years with a faster processor and DVDR drive which I don't have now. I also only have 512MB of ram so memory is tight when say my Norton is running and I am trying to surf the net make it almost impossible with so little ram, The best thing I could have done a year or so ago was to get a flat screen 19" monitor I got from Dell it is 10x better than my old CRT.

 

[Harry]

Chris, there are updates to Windows XP all the time, assuming you have Service Pack 2 (SP2) installed. Microsoft stopped issuing any updates to people who wouldn't put SP2 down on their systems, claiming that SP2 fixed so many security bugs that were prevalent in SP1.

If you have SP2 installed, then your Windows Update, if set to automatic, will just download automatically and prompt you to reboot occasionally.

Harry