To improve page loading, Firefox makes speculative pre-connections to sites when the user hovers mouse over a link or thumbnail on New Tab page or in the search field on the NTP or the home page.
Because of the predictive connections, there is a possibility of of client certificate selection dialog to pop up, that’s why Mozilla has decided to disable speculative connections from the address bar in Firefox 56 (which is going to be released two days later than the planned scheduled date) by default.
Mozilla disables speculative connections in Firefox 56
In Firefox 56, if you visit about:config,
This preference ‘network.http.speculative-parallel-limit’ value should have set to zero, means speculative pre-connections are disabled in Firefox browser.
If you notice the preference value as 6 than zero, then the feature is enabled.
You shouldn’t need to anything in Firefox 56 as it will be disabled by Mozilla, after fixing client certificate selection dialog pop up issue, Mozilla may re-enable it in Firefox 57.
If you’ve privacy or security concerns, you can keep the feature deactivated in current and future Firefox versions by setting the above said preference value to 0.
What’s your take on this? Do you think speculative connections should be disabled by default in Firefox browser? Let us know in the comments.
i hate the new tabs at the side’ i use ancestry and have multiple tabs open for the site. firstly the new strip cuts down the edge of the screen and is distracting when i am looking at the tree i have built. secondly i get less info on the tab and if i am comparing my tree to another i want to be able to see the info in EACH TAB as before now all i get is a few letters. in short i want my tabs BACK where they belong ABOVE MY LOCATED WEB PAGE. the only hope i have is someone will come up with an addon and the tabs will be where they have always been in the most useful place please give us the option. now on my notebook i have less room across my screen too craming the web page which now i have to move a slider to see the full screen or everything is cramped up depending on the site i am looking at not good when you need a full view to see a family lay out. if its not sorted i will likely look to another browser and i have been with you for well over 10 years GIVE ME BACK MY FULL WIDTH