Fasterfox
Encyclopedia
Fasterfox is a Mozilla Firefox extension that provides an interface to tweak some performance related settings such as browser network connection, cache, timings, as well as provide an optional controversial feature which forces Link prefetching
. These changes can decrease (or if suboptimally set, increase) page loading time. Since 2007, the original extension is not maintained by the developer Tony Gentilcore and is not compatible with Firefox 3.0 or later. As of August 2008, there are alternative extensions that are compatible with Firefox 3.6, such as "Fasterfox" (Rsccman Production)
all links on a page in the background. Subsequently, if (or when) one or more of those links is clicked, only a fraction of the time to load the page will be used, since the page has already been cached
.
Users can disable this option.
Fasterfox version 1.0.1 and later checks the robots.txt file on the root folder of servers to see whether or not it should prefetch the page.
but with the exception of those links it deems to be dynamic content by URL.
from prefetching links to their documents (or to just some of their documents). Many websites do this in order to lower their bandwidth costs and improve responsiveness.
Link prefetching
Link prefetching is a proprietary syntax to give web browsers a hint about documents that it should pre-fetch because the user might visit them in the near future. It is proposed as a draft internet standard by Mozilla...
. These changes can decrease (or if suboptimally set, increase) page loading time. Since 2007, the original extension is not maintained by the developer Tony Gentilcore and is not compatible with Firefox 3.0 or later. As of August 2008, there are alternative extensions that are compatible with Firefox 3.6, such as "Fasterfox" (Rsccman Production)
Optimizations
An interface is provided to adjust a range of networks settings. This allows adjusting of:- HTTP pipeliningHTTP pipeliningHTTP pipelining is a technique in which multiple HTTP requests are sent on a single HTTP connection without waiting for the corresponding responses....
- Memory cachingCacheIn computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
- Disk cachingCacheIn computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
- DNSDomain name systemThe Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
cachingCacheIn computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere... - FastBack cachingCacheIn computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
Prefetching
With Fasterfox prefetching enabled, the browser will prefetchLink prefetching
Link prefetching is a proprietary syntax to give web browsers a hint about documents that it should pre-fetch because the user might visit them in the near future. It is proposed as a draft internet standard by Mozilla...
all links on a page in the background. Subsequently, if (or when) one or more of those links is clicked, only a fraction of the time to load the page will be used, since the page has already been cached
Cache
In computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
.
Users can disable this option.
Fasterfox version 1.0.1 and later checks the robots.txt file on the root folder of servers to see whether or not it should prefetch the page.
Prefetched file types
When enabled in Fasterfox, Firefox will prefetch all links with the following extensions:- .gifGIFThe Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....
- .htm and .htmlHTMLHyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
- .jpg and .jpegJPEGIn computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
- .pdfPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
- .png
- .txt and .textText fileA text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists within a computer file system...
- .xmlXMLExtensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
but with the exception of those links it deems to be dynamic content by URL.
Forced prefetch controversy (Preset is Disabled for this reason)
Forcing link prefetching, or forcing links which are not explicitly specified as able to be prefetched, is a controversial feature, for several reasons:- it is not standards compliant (even though prefetching in itself is not a standard)
- prefetched links that are never subsequently viewed are downloaded
- with consequences for site statistics
- which can actually slow down browsing due to cache pollutionCache pollutionCache pollution describes situations where an executing computer program loads data into CPU cache unnecessarily, thus causing other needed data to be evicted from the cache into lower levels of the memory hierarchy, potentially all the way down to main memory, thus causing a performance...
- this additional traffic may cost both webmasterWebmasterA webmaster , also called a web architect, web developer, site author, or website administrator is a person responsible for maintaining one or many websites...
s and user additional bandwidthBandwidth (computing)In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
(and therefore money). - prefetched advertising might be morally or even legally problematic - see click fraudClick fraudClick fraud is a type of Internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target...
.
- some links cannot be cached
- dynamic content cannot be cached anyway
- pages can be explicitly marked as not to be cached
- websites may fail or browsing become annoying
- unintended side effects when visiting a web site that ascribes actions to links (e.g. exposing a "Cancel" or "Delete" action via a link)
- users may receive error messages in connection with pages which they are not actually viewing
- webmasters may block browsers that show signs of robot activity, or simple block browsers with the Fasterfox
Blocking
As mentioned above, websites can use their robots.txt file to block Fasterfox's user agentUser agent
In computing, a user agent is a client application implementing a network protocol used in communications within a client–server distributed computing system...
from prefetching links to their documents (or to just some of their documents). Many websites do this in order to lower their bandwidth costs and improve responsiveness.