780310 - Option for serial instead of parallel download of page elements

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Kurt M. Weber]

Currently, when a page is loaded any separate elements of the page (e.g. images, flash, javascript, CSS, etc.) are downloaded in parallel.  While this probably provides a performance enhancement for most users, for those of us still stuck on slow/dial-up links it really offers no advantage at all.  Furthermore, it is often a hindrance: if, say, two images in the same page are downloaded in parallel, then (to keep things simple, and all else being equal) each image would take twice as long as it would to download as it would had they been downloaded serially, one at a time.  True, the total time downloading the two images (again, all else being equal) would be the same as it otherwise would be--but for servers which impose a fairly short time limit for requests to complete, oftentimes it is the case that neither image downloads fully as both time out.  Thus, there should be the option to download page elements one at a time, sequentially, for those of us with such problems.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

There are not many people left on dialup and the number should get lower in the next years. It doesn't make much sense to add such an option.

You have 2 options:
a) change the value of max-connections-per-server in about:config
-> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.http.max-connections-per-server

You could try for example 4 connections per server

b) Use a proxy that limits the connection count.