Speed Up IE 8 by Increasing the Connections Limit

Posted on: 03.21.08 by Brent Trahan

Learn how to speed up Internet Explorer 8 by increasing the connections limit in Windows Vista and XP.

When a web browser (IE 8 or Firefox for example) connects to a website it establishes connections. Each connection downloads one thing whether it is the html of the page, an image, or ad. Connections are used as a throttle that’s being held back to keep web servers and the internet from getting overloaded.

By default IE 8 only establishes two simultaneous connections at a time to download a web page. The two simultaneous connections limit is specified in the HTTP standard. The two connections limit can be changed on your computer through a registry edit.

Increasing the maximum allowed simultaneous connects from 2 to 16 can increase the speed of some web sites because the sites are downloaded in larger chunks at a time. Keep in mind that this won’t work on all web sites because the number of connections limit can be controlled by the web server.

Don’t expect this hack to make IE 8’s download speed super fast, but it will make some more advanced web sites more responsive.

Increase IE8’s Connections Limit

Warning: Increasing the connections limit requires editing the registry. Edit the registry at your own risk.

Note: You must be logged in with a user account that has administrative privileges to edit the registry.

  1. Download this registry entry and save it on your computer.

    If you’re not comfortable with running this registry entry on your computer, feel free to right-click it and select Edit to view the file contents. You’ll see it does nothing more than change two registry values dealing with your internet connection.

  2. Merge the registry entry by double-clicking it and agreeing to the two information boxes that will appear.
  3. Restart your computer.

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