Recommended Tests

I've done A LOT of tweaking with my firefox the past couple of days starting with the settings on this blog:
http://codebetter.com/blogs/darrell.norton/archive/2005/01/28/48720.aspx

I used the fast connection, fast computer settings. I've been using these settings for a year or two but I just took the time to look up what all those "content." entries mean. Basically content interrupt parsing allows firefox to slow loading to focus on the user interface. Content notify ontimer enables you to edit how often the render refreshes as it begins to display the page. Back off count is how many time the render will refresh at the rate of the content notify interval before it stops and just waits until the page is completely loaded. Content max tokenizing time will set the max amount of time the ui can be unresponsive while rendering the page. It is by default 3x the content notify interval. That way the ui could be unresponsive while rendering and refreshing the page 3x exactly. Content switch threshold decides how long after moving the mouse or pressing the keyboard will loading time be slowed or sacrificed to keep the ui from being unresponsive.

Most articles online will tell you to make the paint delay 0 so you can start reading an article before it is loaded. I got the idea (while playing around with opera browser) to increase the paint delay to one or two seconds. Which is a setting of 1000 or 2000. If the pages finishes loading before then it will automatically appear. After using chrome for maybe the past 6 months and switching back to firefox to try out version 3.5, i got quite used to google chrome seeming to load quickly by displaying the loading page quicker..

I decided there are two ways to go. You are someone who wants to see the page loading right away to start reading or scrolling or you don't mind waiting for it to load fully. I think the idea of wanting it to start rendering quick is bogus because first of all you can't read anything in advance because in some trials i ran, the reading text either loaded last or the other things loading was distracting to actually read anything. The biggest factor is that my connection is so fast that the little bit of time extra that I would have to read something is so small it's unimportant.

So in the end i decided to disable interrupting parsing so that the page would get loaded quicker and to have a long paint delay so that it all renders visably at once. My idea is that instead of getting a "snappy" feel from the page appearing right away, I want it to load as fast as possible and appear all at once. Here are my settings.

nglayout.initialpaint.delay     750
content.interrupt.parsing     false
content.notify.backoffcount     5
content.notify.interval     750000
content.notify.ontimer     true
content.max.tokenizing.time and content.switch.threshold are irrelevant since content.interrupt.parsing is disabled and both that and notify ontimer have to be enabled for them to work.

If you would like to go the route of having the page appear quicker, try these settings. The reason i enabled content.interrupt.parsing is becuase in theory you want to show the page to read or possibly scroll so you want the ui to not be unresponsive for a period of time. You can still disable this though if you don't like to scroll while your pages are loading. This is on be default.

nglayout.initialpaint.delay     0
content.interrupt.parsing     true
content.notify.backoffcount     5
content.notify.interval     250000
content.notify.ontimer     true
content.max.tokenizing.time     750000
content.switch.threshold     250000

Remember you only have this type of flexibility if you consider yourself to have a fast connection and computer.

Tell me what you guys think. I know i put a lot of thought into something that will probably not cause any speed boost, but the "appearance" of a quicker loading google chrome proved false since firefox has an automatic paint delay of a quarter second. I think where chrome does have it's extra "snappy" feeling is when loading multiple tabs or opening and loading a new tab due to the multiple processes.

I have to say, the difference is noticeable, but it really comes down to personal preference. Only the pipelining can actually increase how quickly after you press the mouse/enter will the page be done loading, but everything else is just changing the responsiveness and how soon/fast you can actually see the page while loading. It's nothing big, but i just found it interesting how chome and firefox go about this. Chrome obviously gets the best of both worlds due to it making use of our processors better.

I have to say i see some but not much talk about browsers on this site when they afterall what uses our fast connections. Yes there's discussion on how fast the speed test loads, but when browsing, reading, and playing games on our browsers, a lot more things factor in.

That said, the content. settings could theoretically? change your testmy.net score because they change whether load speed or ui responsiveness are prioritized by the browser. Maybe i'll run a few tests.