Fasterfox

Infobox Software
name = Fasterfox



caption = Tony Gentilcore
collapsible =
author =
developer =
released =
latest release version = 2.0
latest release date = 2006-10-30
latest preview version =
latest preview date =
frequently updated =
programming language =
operating system =
platform = Cross-platform
size =
language =
status = Unmaintained
genre = Mozilla extension
license = MPL 1.1
website = [http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/ fasterfox.mozdev.org]

Fasterfox is a Mozilla Firefox extension that tweaks network connection and caches web pages in order to decrease page loading time. It is currently not compatible with Firefox 3.0.

Optimizations

An interface is provided to adjust a range of networks settings. [cite news |first=Rick |last=Maybury |title=Bootcamp 418: Mozilla Firefox top tips |url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2006/04/03/ecrboot03.xml |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=2006-04-03 |accessdate=2008-02-03 ] This allows adjusting of:
* HTTP pipelining
* Memory caching
* Disk caching
* DNS caching
* FastBack caching

Prefetching

Fasterfox has the ability to prefetch all links on a page in the background so that when a link is clicked, only a fraction of the time to load the page will be used, since the page has already been cached. [cite news |first=Jamie |last=Lendino |title=Review: Top 10 Mozilla Firefox Extensions |url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,206113,00.html |work=Fox News |date=2006-07-31 |accessdate=2008-02-03 ] 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.cite web | url=http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/faq.html#Im_a_webmaster,_how_can_I_prevent_prefetching | title=FasterFox FAQ: I'm a webmaster, how can I prevent prefetching]

Prefetched file types

Firefox can prefetch files with the following extensions:
*.gif">

*.htm and .html
*.jpg and .jpeg
*.pdf
*.png")>

*.txt and .text
*.xml

Forced Prefetch controversy

Forcing link prefetching, or forcing links which are not specified as prefetchable, is a controversial feature, for many reasons:
*it is not standards compliant (even though prefetching in itself is a standard)
*links that might never be viewed are downloaded - with consequences for site statistics
*this additional traffic costs webmasters additional bandwidth (and therefore money).
*advertising that is downloaded but not viewed might be morally or even legally problematic (see click fraud).
*speculative downloading can actually cause cache pollution
*dynamic content cannot be cached anyway
*unintended side effects when visiting a web site that ascribes actions to links (i.e. exposing a "Cancel" or "Delete" action via a link)
*users may receive error messages in connection with pages which they are not actually viewing [cite news |first=Mark |last=Gibbs |title=The perils of precaching |url=http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2006/121806gearhead.html?page=1 |work=Network World |date=2006-12-15 |accessdate=2008-02-03 ]

Blocking

As mentioned above, websites can use their robots.txt file to block Fasterfox's user agent 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. [cite news |first=Mark |last=Newton |title=Things move on |url=http://www.pcpro.co.uk/realworld/89216/things-move-on/page4.html |work=PC Pro |date=2006-06-29 |accessdate=2008-02-03 ]

Pop-Up Blocker

Fasterfox also blocks pop-ups that appear as a results of Flash plug-ins (movies) and Flash exploits.

References

External links

* [http://fasterfox.mozdev.org Fasterfox] Home Page
* [http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/installation.html Fasterfox Installation page] includes ChangeLog
* [http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/screenshots.html Fasterfox ScreenShots]
* [http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/faq.html Fasterfox FAQs]
* [http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/Fasterfox-Review-11923.shtml Softpedia Fasterfox Review]