A couple of suggestions to possibly make your pages load faster [UPDATED]

Jim Robinson

[Jim Robinson]

Very sorry about the problems with our servers causing FR to fail under heavy traffic loads. Praying that John finds a solution or workaround soon.

In the meantime, here are a couple suggestion you can use to possibly make your pages load faster:

1. Configure your sidebars to display fewer items. I've temporarily disabled all sidebars but breaking news on mine.

   Select "Disabled" in the "Region" pulldown for each sidebar block you wish to temporarily disable then click "Modify":

   http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/manage-blocks

2. Reduce the number of threads and replies downloaded on each click. Go to personal preferences and reduce the "Thread Pagination" to 20 messages per page and "Browsing" to 20 results per page.

   http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/settings

3. Update: And a suggestion (made by metmom) is to set your "Brevity" preference to "Headers." This will definitely make your index pages (latest posts, etc) load faster.

   And it’s simply a click to toggle "Brevity" from "Text" to "Headers" or back the other way when needed: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/news-forum/index

4. And for firefox users: KoRn has posted a useful tip to make firefox load pages faster: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1299854/posts

If enough of us did this we would reduce the amount of data downloaded on each click, reducing the load on the database and the server and possibly increasing overall systems performance.

To reset your preferences later, click on "Account" at the top of any of the main index pages and then "Manage Blocks" to configure your sidebars and "My Preferences" to set your number of threads and replies per thread preferences.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/my/

Thank you all very much and good luck.

[humblegunner]

I’ll give some of that a try.
Thanks for the suggestions!

[UCANSEE2]

Will do, sir.

[Never on my watch]

Wilco.

[Red Badger]

DONE!

AND IT DID!...............

[GeronL]

good idea.

Can you guys reset the default to do something like that?

[musicman]

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[Defiant]

Funny, I clicked on this post, but my browser couldn’t load it.....I guess I will try these suggestions and see how it goes. Thanks for all you do.

[Marie]

Done and done!

Thank you for giving US a way to help the situation.

[Son House]

And could someone please tell the ‘man in the middle’ to please speed up our connections to Free Republic too...

[1035rep]

I made the changes. Thanks Jim.

[AppyPappy]

Are those settings the default settings now?

You could reset everyone and tell them to change it if they like.

[ThomasThomas]

I haven’t actively used some of these blocks in years. Thanks you suggestion.

[Grampa Dave]

I did it.

You have to log off to reset the parameters.

That is a downside re trying to log back on.

[Grampa Dave]

I did it.

You have to log off to reset the parameters.

That is a downside re trying to log back on.

[Grampa Dave]

I did it.

You have to log off to reset the parameters.

That is a downside re trying to log back on.

[MEG33]

Done..still having problems timing out, though

[ShadowAce]

[GOP Poet]

Thanks!