How to get Super fast downloads on Firefox

TBD's Guide to Fast Firefox Downloads

This tutorial may work for internet explorer but I'm not sure and IE is stupid. Anyway, I'm going to show you how to get really fast DLs. On the previous file I dl'd (p3.avi) I got it going 25 mb/s.




First of all, find the file you want to download. This works best with big files. The file I'm downloading is 450 mbs and I have a 1.2 mb/s connection. It rarely gets that high on downloads anyway, but I'm sure the faster the connection the better. And also this may help lpasso download a mp3 in 20 minutes.

Anyway, after the prompt comes up to open with..., save as..., flashget(if you have it) or whatever, just let it sit and wait. The bigger the file, the longer you should wait I guess.



Anyway 6 minutes later click to save it somewhere and proceed with the download. I would have took a cap of the DL speed but it finished too early. Firefox temporarily froze while it was saving so I couldn't get the screen.



Try it out.

I know some of you are probably gonna be like "What's the difference if you just wait 5 minutes before saving opposed to saving immediately and waiting 5 minutes after?" Well there is a significant difference, as you don't know what your max speed is gonna end up being, it could only be 75 kb/s opposed to 4000 kb/s. I know I told this to dragon and he got very good results.

I didn't realise this increased actual speed, but I know while you sit there and let it wait it starts downloading regardless. Anyways I'll try it out, cuz u know like i think it was probably a really good idea n tomorrow at work ill tell the bullets physio cause hes into this kind of stuff and it sounds like a good idea kthxcya.

hm. interesting idea. i dont wait and it still downloads pretty fast. i might however try out your method. seems kind of silly still to just wait.
mine freezes a little bit. like for a second.
firefox is

I get 1200 kb/s normally with FlashGet but I'm gonna try this out

It doesn't increase actual speed. If just automatically downloads while you have the save box open. All browsers do this, IE starts the download before the rest even do.

The reason for the "freeze" is that instead of caching the file over time, it does it all at once. Leading to a ton of RAM and hard drive usage.

The "higher" speed is recorded because the time remaning counter doesn't kick in until after you've clicked "Save"

There's another way of increasing page loading rates by adjusting settings within Firefox that I know works, but I dont remember where I saw the tutorial last. I'll have to post it sometime.

It doesn't increase actual speed. If just automatically downloads while you have the save box open. All browsers do this, IE starts the download before the rest even do.

But how come it seems that doing this method and just leaving it for like 5 minutes, save it and have it downloaded in 3 more minutes takes a whole lot less time than immediately saving it? See, that would take 8 minutes whereas if you immediately download it the speed consistantly drops (for me anyway) and ends up going around 25-50 kb/s.

And the freeze doesn't bother me at all because it only takes a few seconds to straighten out. I could easily wait until I'm sure the download is done and end the process through Windows task manager.

@ Axel, yea I know about that but this is completely different than loading pages. It's been posted here before. Just download a FasterFox extension.

I'll test it out, but it's gonna be ...weird if it really works! I think Ben might be right...

it sort of worked for me, but that's because I'm on dial-up speeds cos I've downloaded too much this month.

It started at like 9mb/s, went to 1mb/s in like 10 seconds, then went to like 100kb/s after a few more seconds.

Then it went slowly down to 50kb/s. Then it was doing like 40kb/s and then it gradually decreased to 9kb/s then finally finished. Which is still fast. But nice find nonetheless.

It doesn't change the actual download speed. Basically the file is downloading already, and after 5 mins the speed seems faster because the counter needs to start at 0. Ok, this is how it works.

Let's say I downloaded a file that was 10MB, and I usually download at 100 kBps. (so it would rougly take me 10 seconds to download a MB.)
I downloaded around 2MB already before I pressed save as.
Now the computer has to calculate the speed, however, since the download always has to start at 0, the computer shows 2MBps + 100kBps. If you tried that method with big files, you'll notice that the download speed goes down quite drastically. But how come it doesn't go down by 2MBps after a few seconds pass?
For 2 seconds passed, the equation would be (2MBps + 100kBps + 100kBps)/2 = 1.1 MBps, which is still significantly more than your 100kBps normal download speed.
For 3 it would be 700kbps, for 4 it would be 600kbps, and so on.

Something that actually DOES increase your download speed though, is using free download manger. Just google it and download it. Its very nice because it'll pause, then later resume your downloads if the source gets shutoff or you have to restart, and its more effecient so speeds increase.

Something that actually DOES increase your download speed though, is using free download manger. Just google it and download it. Its very nice because it'll pause, then later resume your downloads if the source gets shutoff or you have to restart, and its more effecient so speeds increase.

Just use FlashGet along with Firefox, download managers like DAP or GetRight just suck.

I already get around 800 kb/sec but what the hell, I'll give it a go.

i get around 1300 kb/sec already, but i guess more won't hurt

Try timing a download from like, ati.com, just normal method. Then try using the new method.

I don't think it changes anything, the browser just thinks it's started with more so it says your speed is higher. It eventually goes down to normal speed as the time elapsed matches the downloaded amount more evenly.