For years I have suffered my browser (Firefox) becoming virtually unusable whilst my download client is running (regardless of which one I use). Hence I feel the need to share this tweak which a tech friend recently shared with me. He uses Win XP, Utorrent and Firefox; I use Ubuntu 9.04, Deluge and Firefox. This tweaking of Firefox settings works equally well for both us... perfect browsing speeds even when downloading and uploading large amounts of data.

Simply follow the instructions below, writing down the old Firefox config settings as you go (so that you can completely reverse the settings, should you for some strange reason choose to!).

1. Type "about:config" in the address bar in Firefox (without the quote marks) and hit <enter>

2. Agree to be careful!

3. Copy the lines below, one by one (e.g. "network.http.pipelining" (without the quotes)), in the <filter> field across the top of the window that opens after you have clicked the <ok> button. The entry is automatically fetched. Double click on the key to toggle it between <false> and <true>, following the listed values below. If the value is numeric, change it to the suggested value listed below.

network.http.pipelining Change false to true

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests Change this to 8

network.http.max-connections Change this to 96

network.http.max-connections-per-server Change this to 32

network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server Change this to 8

network.http.pipelining.ssl Change false to true

network.http.proxy.pipelining Change false to true

Close config and restart your computer and router...

Enjoy fast browsing...

Thanks for that tip.

Not being one to impelement such tips without first checking what the side effects maybe, I did a little research and found that the benefits to changing the pipelineing settings can be quite dramatic especialy on a faster connection. (anybody got one of those here?)

For those of you who wish to know more about what you are changing in your browser, here are some of the links I looked at

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/htt...lining-faq.html

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=53650 (this link also includes other tips)

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2005/02..._tweak_tips.htm

The following link has some words of caution, but I was pleased to see that their recommendations seem to have been incorporteted in the above instructions

http://egonitron.com/2007/05/25/the-truth-...pelining-trick/

I don't know which download manager you use. But I can set any speed for every single download that I want with mine. So no problem for other internet applications. Just look at the freeware

http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

It is one of the best.