These are the tweaks I use to enhance the performance of Internet Explorer 6. If you are running a version earlier than IE6 then I can only recommend you upgrade first since IE6 is faster than previous versions even without these tweaks. X-Setup is required to implement some of these tweaks.
Optimize the TIF and History Caches (Logoff or reboot required)In the Internet Options on the General tab click the Settings button. Set
Check for newer versions of stored pages to
Never. This will force IE to use the cached copy of a site if available. Under
Temporary Internet files folder set the TIF cache to a very large size (mine is 768MB). The idea isn't to let the cache utilization grow that large but to tell IE it has heaps and gobs of space available. Just make sure you do not allocate more space to the cache than is available on the disk.
In the Internet Options on the General tab set
Days to keep pages in history to one day.
If you have a second hard disk that is as fast or faster than the master disk then move the TIF, History, Cookies and UserData caches to the first partition on the second disk. The only other file on that partition should be the pagefile or at least don't use that partition for general storage.
Moving the TIF is easy but redirecting the other cache folders will require editing the registry.
To move the TIF, In the Internet Options on the General tab click the
Move Folder button. Browse to the first drive on the second disk (or a folder therein) and click OK till you are prompted to reboot.
To move the History folder, open Regedit and edit the following two values to point to the same drive path where you moved the TIF.
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Shell Folders/History
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
User Shell Folders/History
In like manner edit the Cookies values at the same locations.
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Shell Folders/Cookies
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
User Shell Folders/Cookies
The path to the UserData folder (which may not exist) can be changed at
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\Cache\Extensible Cache\UserData/CachePath
While Regedit is open delete the following keys.
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
RemoteComputer\NameSpace\
{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
RemoteComputer\NameSpace\
{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}
It's a common speed tweak for IE, I just go a step further to delete both keys under the NameSpace key.
Disable the HTML Source Editor CheckOpen Regedit and navigate to
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
Create a new string value named
CheckDocumentForProgID and give it a value of
no. This will stop IE from checking program IDs in documents to determine which editor to use.
Force IE to treat plain text as textIn Regedit, navigate to
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings
Create a new DWORD named
IsTextPlainHonored and give it a value of
1 (Decimal).
Disable the Content Advisor (if enabled).
In the Internet Options on the Content tab under Content Advisor, click the Disable button if present (password may be required).
Clean up invalid code pages (requires X-Setup)
This is an important tweak. Open X-Setup and navigate to the Internet Explorer plug-ins. Click Clean up code page references in the left pane, check Attempt to improve IE performance by cleaning up codepages and click Apply changes
Increase simultaneous server connections
This is an important tweak. While in X-Setup, click Server Connections in the left pane. Type in 20 for HTTP/1.0 conn. and 10 for HTTP/1.1 conn. My settings are a little high so you might wish to try 16 and 8 respectively or experiment till you find your sweet spot. As a general rule I recommend the 1.0 setting be twice that of the 1.1 setting.
Use a local htm file as a startpage
IE will start faster if you use a local startpage since nothing has to be fetched from the net. Also if you are like me you probably load your startpage more than any other webpage so your access to this page will be more rapid if it and all files linked to it are stored locally on your disk. Plus there won't be any dot coms/nets privy to every time you start your browser or click Home. One thing though, don't use a page served by a local http server as IE will cache the page as if fetched from the net. Open Internet Options and on the General tab type in file:///C:/Path2/MyStartPage.htm.
Enable HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/1.1 through proxy connections
This is by far the most important tweak. In Internet Options on the Advanced tab enable both HTTP/1.1 options. While you are at it verify that Send only HTTP/1.0 requests is disabled in Proxo.
Enable UDP localhost loopback
This is very important. Verify that your firewall permits localhost loopback for both TCP and UDP. Blocking UDP on localhost will slow IE to a dead crawl.
Miscellaneous Tweaks
While on the Advanced tab, setting the following options can improve IEs performance but may not be for everybody.
Disable Automatically check for IE updates.
Check Disable script debugging (if the debugger is installed).
Disable Display notification of every script error.
Disable Enable folder view of FTP sites.
Disable both Install on demand options.
Disable Enable off-line items to be synchronized on a schedule.
Disable Page Transitions
Disable all options under Microsoft VM
Disable all options under Multimedia except
Don't display online media content in the MediaBar and
Show Pictures
Under Security disable the Profile Assistant. You can also shave off a few milliseconds by disabling the certificate checks but I don't recommend it.
Things you can do with Proxo
Remove or replace all cache breaking headers and tags (filters abound).
Inject a script (see below) that contains the following two lines of code.
Code
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window.offscreenBuffering=true;\n
window.onerror=function() { return true; }\n
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The first line enables off-screen buffering (default is auto) which forces IE to render offscreen. Much faster than repeatedly filling and dumping the buffer to screen. All DOM compliant browsers should support this object property.
The second line turns off error reporting.
Common Sense Practices
Defrag often.
Uninstall unused or frivolous IE addons.
Remove any and all spyware.
If you use a hosts file for ad blocking, use eDexter (not the java version) with it.
Here is my Page Load timer that includes the two script lines mentioned above.
Code
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[Patterns]
Name = "Page Load Timer part I"
Active = TRUE
URL = "$TYPE(htm)"
Limit = 10
Match = "(^(^<head>))"
Replace = "<script type="text/javascript">\n"
"<!--\n"
"var pxst=new Date();\n"
"window.offscreenBuffering=true;\n"
"window.onerror=function() { return true; }\n"
"function endT() {\n"
"var pxet=new Date();\n"
"loadT=('Load Time: '+(pxet.getTime()-pxst.getTime())/1000+' second(s)');\n"
"window.defaultStatus=loadT;\n"
"}\n"
"//-->\n"
"</script>\n$STOP()"
Name = "<end>: Page Load Timer v2.2 Part II"
Active = TRUE
URL = "$TYPE(htm)"
Limit = 5
Match = "<end>"
Replace = "<script type="text/javascript">\n"
"<!--\n"
"window.onload=endT;\n"
"//-->\n"
"</script>\n$STOP()"
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I think that's about it. If I forgot something I'll post it later.
God protect me from your followers.
