Networking Tips: Optimize Your Browser's Internet Connection FasterFox and ServStats Add-ons for Mozilla Firefox Michael Hall
It seems we're all looking for a way to squeeze a bit more out of our Internet connections. If you're using Firefox, the two add-ons we discuss this week help you speed things up a little without having to deal with the browser's about:config page.
There was a somewhat hilarious blog entry last week, posted by one of the developers who works on Apple's Safari Web browser. He noted that Digg readers had rediscovered an old hidden preference that eliminated a small delay Safari's developers had built into the browser:
"In the comments are many testimonials like 'Oh my gosh! Safari is so much faster now!"
I remember this particular trick from a few years back, when Safari was still new. It was widely discussed, with users expressing outrage that Apple would deliberately impede their browsing. There was a perfectly good explanation for the behavior, but a spate of utilities designed to ease removing the delay appeared anyhow. People wanted their one second back.
There was a bit of a punchline to the latest resurgence of this particular "optimization," though. As the developer went on to note:
"This just goes to prove how inaccurate people's powers of perception are when it comes to measuring the performance of browsers. I say this because the preference in question is dead and does absolutely nothing in Safari 1.3 and Safari 2.0."
Doh!
A lot of "optimization" solutions for software often turn out to be snake oil of one kind or another. Snake oil or not, though, it seems like we're all looking for a way to squeeze a bit more out of our Internet connections. If you're using Firefox, the capability to add "add-ons" to your browser makes the process simple (and you don't even have to pay for snake oil shareware to fix "problems" that aren't).
These Tips Are Indeed Real
The two add-ons we have for you this week help you speed Firefox up a little without having to deal with its about:config page or get a handle on whether there's something wrong with a site you're trying to connect with or if it's something on your end. These two additions are actually kind of complementary, too.
Fasterfox
Fasterfox sets up some optimizations designed to make your browsing experience a little peppier. It does this by addressing several key areas:
Prefetching, which allows Firefox to quietly download and cache links on a page while you're reading, making the next page appear much faster, since it's already cached and available on your system when you click on its link.
Pipelining, which takes advantage of modern Web servers' capability to reply to multiple requests over the same HTTP connection.
DNS caching, which allows Firefox to remember the DNS addresses for sites you're visiting for longer. We talked about this back in November, when we looked at OpenDNS.
Simultaneous connections, which control how many requests for page data Firefox will make at once.
It also includes an improvement to Firefox's pop-up blocker that catches pesky Flash popups.
Fasterfox presents all this in one of two ways: There's a simplified five-option menu that offers graduated approaches to optimizing your browser. At the lowest level, all the optimizations are turned off. At the highest level, Fasterfox will push your browser (and the Web servers it interacts with) at a pace that exceeds both the specifications engineers have set and, frankly, common courtesy. Fasterfox also offers a customizable setting, which provides a much closer look at all the things it's doing under the hood.
There was a somewhat hilarious blog entry last week, posted by one of the developers who works on Apple's