Question

I've come across some Firefox about:config tweaks on the internet which claim that making those changes will speed up Firefox. Those tweaks are:

network.http.pipelining: Change this to true.
network.http.proxy.pipelining: Change this 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.

Is it safe to change these values?

Answer 1

I have found that, generally, using a local caching name server, a local caching proxy (such as squid or polipo), and adblock+noscript has a far greater improvement in perceived performance on my overall daily browsing habits than specific Firefox or network stack tweaks.

Everyone's usage patterns are different, of course, but that's what works well for me.

Answer 2

It may be safe but I'm not sure if it's right. I'm thinking about the max-connections-per-server, read http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.http.max-connections-per-server. "It is, however, considered poor etiquette to make too many connections to a server and may lead to you being banned from that server."

How many is too many I can't say though.

Answer 3

Yes, it is. That configures your browser to make more connections to a webserver to download bits of the page in parallel - which a broadband connection handles fine. Dial up, not so much.

Answer 4

Rather than changing these parameters by hand, I suggest using the Tweak Network add-on:

Firefox has a couple of hidden network settings. With Tweak Network, you can tweak these settings, and you might be able to speed up the loading of web pages. You can also increase the maximum number of simultaneous downloads from a site (the default is only four).

Answer 5

These settings probably won't make an noticable change, but they will make things more difficult for the server you're connecting to. Most tips for speeding up Firefox are either a bad idea or don't do anything. The only one I've found that does anything is turning off ipv6 (if your ISP doesn't support it), but I don't know if it's still needed on new versions of Firefox.