Opera is already a very fast browser, but if you would have the choice between fast and faster than fast, what would you choose ? I took the liberty to compile a list of 10 great tips that speed up Opera in several unique ways. Many of the settings can be changed by simply going to Tools > Preferences in Opera but some can only be used by accessing not so obvious ways like ini files.
Please note that everything that I'm describing here worked fine on my computer. It speed up Opera and increased my browsing experience with it tremendously. While most tips will work for any users no matter their connection to the Internet some tips might only increase performance for broadband users.
Click on Tools > Preferences, select the Advanced Tab and choose Network from the left menu. Click on Server Name Completion and disable Look for local network machine and try name completion, using.
Go to Tools > Preferences and click on the Advanced Tab. Choose History from the left menu and select Every 24 hours or even every week for image checks. You can always refresh the cache manually by typing F5 while visiting the website.
To deactivate them open the file plugin-ignore.ini located in your Opera main directory and add the filename of the plugin that you want to disable to it.
Another problem are duplicate plugins that are caused by loading the plugins from Firefox as well. This happens of course only if Firefox is installed on the same system. You can disable this easily by typing opera:config in the address bar. Navigate to User Prefs > Plugin Path and delete the Firefox reference there.
The easiest approach would be to backup the file opera6.ini in your profiles folder of your Opera installation and delete it afterwards. Please note that Opera has to be closed before you do this. Restart Opera afterwards and it should automatically create a new opera6.ini file without all those old entries.
You will loose the personal information if you entered them in Opera and also all tweaks that you might have applied are gone too. It is however not a big problem to enter them again using the Preferences for the personal information and about:config for the latter.
Type about:config and enter Turbo into the search field. Disable Turbo Mode and click on save.
Type about:config and enter connections into the search field. Change the value of Max Connections Total from 20 to another value, I suggest 32 or 64 connections. The Max Connections per Server setting should remain as it is. You might even want to test a lower setting, for instance 4 connections there.
A temporary fix would be to clear the history manually, a better solution to reduce the amount of websites that Opera stores.
Click on Tools > Preferences and then on the advanced tab. Select History from the left menu and either click on Clear next to Addresses if you want to test if this solution really speeds up loading times or reduce the number of stored addresses in the history right away. I never use that feature and set it to 0. You might reduce it to 100 for instance.
We are however able to ignore the Expires meta tag from websites by changing two settings in the Opera configuration.
Write opera:config in the address bar, hit enter. Search for expiry and change the settings for Check Expiry History and Check Expiry Load to 1.
Locate your accounts.ini file which should be in the Opera mail folder. Every account should have an entry Initial Poll Delay=X where X should be set to at least 60 (seconds) and the rss feed to something like 120 or more.
10 Tips to speed up Opera 9 » gHacks tech news
Please note that everything that I'm describing here worked fine on my computer. It speed up Opera and increased my browsing experience with it tremendously. While most tips will work for any users no matter their connection to the Internet some tips might only increase performance for broadband users.
- Disable Name Completion and local network lookup
Click on Tools > Preferences, select the Advanced Tab and choose Network from the left menu. Click on Server Name Completion and disable Look for local network machine and try name completion, using.
- Increase the time cached images are used before checking for new versions
Go to Tools > Preferences and click on the Advanced Tab. Choose History from the left menu and select Every 24 hours or even every week for image checks. You can always refresh the cache manually by typing F5 while visiting the website.
- Remove unneeded and duplicate plugins
To deactivate them open the file plugin-ignore.ini located in your Opera main directory and add the filename of the plugin that you want to disable to it.
Another problem are duplicate plugins that are caused by loading the plugins from Firefox as well. This happens of course only if Firefox is installed on the same system. You can disable this easily by typing opera:config in the address bar. Navigate to User Prefs > Plugin Path and delete the Firefox reference there.
- Rebuild your profile if you have upgraded Opera (a lot)
The easiest approach would be to backup the file opera6.ini in your profiles folder of your Opera installation and delete it afterwards. Please note that Opera has to be closed before you do this. Restart Opera afterwards and it should automatically create a new opera6.ini file without all those old entries.
You will loose the personal information if you entered them in Opera and also all tweaks that you might have applied are gone too. It is however not a big problem to enter them again using the Preferences for the personal information and about:config for the latter.
- Disable Turbo mode
Type about:config and enter Turbo into the search field. Disable Turbo Mode and click on save.
- Increase the number of total connections
Type about:config and enter connections into the search field. Change the value of Max Connections Total from 20 to another value, I suggest 32 or 64 connections. The Max Connections per Server setting should remain as it is. You might even want to test a lower setting, for instance 4 connections there.
- Reduce the amount of visited pages in history
A temporary fix would be to clear the history manually, a better solution to reduce the amount of websites that Opera stores.
Click on Tools > Preferences and then on the advanced tab. Select History from the left menu and either click on Clear next to Addresses if you want to test if this solution really speeds up loading times or reduce the number of stored addresses in the history right away. I never use that feature and set it to 0. You might reduce it to 100 for instance.
- Change Expiry Settings
We are however able to ignore the Expires meta tag from websites by changing two settings in the Opera configuration.
Write opera:config in the address bar, hit enter. Search for expiry and change the settings for Check Expiry History and Check Expiry Load to 1.
- Save Images Faster
- Delay mail and rss connections at startup
Locate your accounts.ini file which should be in the Opera mail folder. Every account should have an entry Initial Poll Delay=X where X should be set to at least 60 (seconds) and the rss feed to something like 120 or more.
10 Tips to speed up Opera 9 » gHacks tech news