Join us and the lead editor of IRL, Mozilla's multi-award-winning podcast, for a behind-the-scenes look at the pod and to contribute your ideas for the next season, themed: "AI and ME." Mark your calendar and join our Community Call on Wednesday, Aug 7, 17:00–17:45 UTC. See you there!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How do I increase the file download speed?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

When downloading outside of firefox, I manage anywhere from 5mb/s to 16mb/s, depending what I am downloading and where from. Yet, when a file has to download from within the browser, it downloads at 1/30th to 1/10th of that if I am lucky. Is there some kind of restriction built in to firefox that I might be able to change or am I just S.O.L?

When downloading outside of firefox, I manage anywhere from 5mb/s to 16mb/s, depending what I am downloading and where from. Yet, when a file has to download from within the browser, it downloads at 1/30th to 1/10th of that if I am lucky. Is there some kind of restriction built in to firefox that I might be able to change or am I just S.O.L?

All Replies (2)

more options

Download / upload speeds depend on 3 things.

  • The speed of the ISP
  • The speed of the sender
  • The speed of the receiver

Since you seem to have decided Firefox is the issue, lets work on that.


Go to the Mozilla Add-ons Web Page {web link} (There’s a lot of good stuff here) and search for a download manager. There are also external programs that can be used.


http://kb.mozillazine.org/Issues_with_Firefox#Downloading_opening_or_saving_files

Modified by FredMcD

more options

Did you check your security software (firewall, anti-virus) to make sure that this isn't affecting the download speed?

Boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test to see if that helps.