Web Performance Tuning

Browser Tuning Tips

General Tips

Upgrade

Try to get the latest non-beta version of your browser. Newer versions usually include new features like HTTP 1.1 persistent connections to improve performance. Still, there are some things to be said for the older versions. First of all, beta versions of new browsers often have bugs and performance problems associated with them, while the older non-beta versions are more stable. Netscape 4.0 beta ran Java especially slowly, but this was fixed in the version that was officially released. You may want to wait until a browser is officially released before trying it. Second, browsers have been getting fatter very fast. Netscape 3 for Linux takes about 5M of memory when you first start it up; Netscape 4 takes about 8M. As you use them, they both grow through the loading of features and through memory leaks. If you’re memory-constrained, you will get better performance with the older version, especially if it makes the difference between swapping to disk or not.

Do less

You can change your browser’s settings so that the browser does only the minimum necessary to get and show you a page. First, turn off automatic loading of images, since they take up most of your bandwidth, and each requires a separate connection unless both your browser and server understand persistent connections. You’ll see placeholders for unloaded images that you can click on individually for loading, or you can load them all at once through a menu option. Similarly, you should ...