Firefox tip

I came across this info yesterday of use to anyone who is using a later version of Firefox.

It turns out that newer versions of Firefox do something called "speculative connections". All you have to do is hover your mouse pointer over a link and Firefox will open a connection to that site. You don't have to click on a link. So if you're like me and move your mouse around the page as your browsing, you'll open up a bunch of links to sites you don't intend to visit. That can generate a lot of network traffic and computer activity, while it gives sites that track browsing activity a lot more info to work with.

It's fairly easy to turn off this behavior. The information below is from the Firefox support site:

In the Location bar, type about:config and press Enter.
The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise! to continue to the about:config page.
In the about:config page, search for the preference network.http.speculative-parallel-limit.
Observe the Value column of the network.http.speculative-parallel-limit row.
If it is set to 0 then do nothing.
If it is set to a different value, double-click on it to set it to 0.

I typically have several tabs open when I browse, and I've noticed a lot of activity on my router after I've been browsing for a while. I've also noted a ridiculous number of TCP connections when I run the (Linux) "netstat -t" command, and those connections close only when I close Firefox. Since I changed the "network.http.speculative-parallel-limit" setting last night, I've noticed a significant reduction in Firefox network activity. Highly recommended.
Turning off speculative connections in Firefox

Thanks for the tip! I just checked mine, and it was set to 6. I don't have the fastest connection, so I don't want snoopers hogging my bandwidth. I wonder if the next update will change settings again.

Firefox upgrades should respect earlier personal settings.

The best thing to do with Firefox is to give it the boot and switch to Google Chrome.

(quoted from post at 22:40:05 08/15/15)
The best thing to do with Firefox is to give it the boot and switch to Google Chrome.

Click to expand...

Tried Chrome a few years ago- Hated it. You couldn't email a link from the browser without a third party script. maybe it's better now. Firefox works for me.

Well I like that speculative connection, that is if we are on the same page. When I hover over a link, on lower left of screen just above "start" the link address comes up, is that what you are talking about? If so, that is good. A lot of time a link will just say "link", or "poke here" or it may even look like a real link. You hover it and that place in lower left will tell where you are fixing to go. A lot of time it will be someplace other than what you expect so I can ignore it without actually going to it.
Am I wrong?

I am a complete computer dunce, how do I get to the place to enter the comment?

Thanks for the tip, Mark. I just finished going thru that process, and both of our computers were set on 6. I'd have never found the way to do that, and I think it will speed them up. On a different subject, do you advise people to download Windows 10 now, or is there any good reason to put it off? Also, a Spybot scan has turned up a malware file HKEY_USERS-1-5-21-1111181634... that it tells me it has tried to remove 8 times, and it will keep trying. Is there any way to remove this file manually?
Butch

>When I hover over a link, on lower left of screen just above "start" the link address comes up, is that what you are talking about?

No, you can't tell Firefox is making speculative connections without monitoring network statistics. Turning off speculative connections will not affect the URL display at the bottom of the window. The purpose of speculative connections is to speed up the response if you do click the URL by opening up a connection in advance of when it's needed.

Sorry, woodbutcher, but I'm the wrong person to ask about Windows. I use it at work, but at home I'm strictly a Linux guy.

>how do I get to the place to enter the comment?

If you're asking where to type in "about:config", you type that into the address bar, the same place you type any URL you want to go to. ("about:config" is a URL, it just doesn't look like the http URLs with which you're familiar.)

(quoted from post at 14:40:05 08/15/15)
The best thing to do with Firefox is to give it the boot and switch to Google Chrome.

Click to expand...

Go one step further and check out Pale Moon from http://www.palemoon.org/

This is a forked version of Firefox that is now Open Source and it works in both Windows and Linux

Thanks.
I'm about ready to boot Chrome and go back to FireFox.