Changing the Internet Explorer Connection Limit

Changing the Internet Explorer Connection Limit

The HTTP 1.0 specification allows for 4 concurrent connections from a browser to a web server. HTTP 1.1 decreases this to 2 concurrent connections, which means that at any given time, up to 2 files can be downloaded at the same time. Although we are not referring to the downloading of software files in this respect, the principle still applies.

The more images on a site, the longer it can take to download all of them because of the limit in how many connections can be established. You can tweak this maximum number of connections for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer by modifying the appropriate registry entries, but keep in mind that this is breaking the established rules.

Some web servers have been configured to throttle the number of connections, thus if this is set to 2, then this change may not work. On the other hand, it may speed up your web surfing a bit. There is a small downside that you may want to consider. If you are on a relatively slow Internet connection you will have more files downloading simultaneously, thereby slowing your overall surfing ability. So, you may want to check these speeds before and after to see if there is an improvement.

Here is the registry key location.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\InternetSettings

Here are the registry edits.

For HTTP 1.1 Servers

Value Name:   MaxConnectionsPerServer
Data Type:    REG_DWORD
Data:         2

Note: 2 is the default, the suggested maximum is 8.

For HTTP 1.0 Servers

Value Name: MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server
Data Type:    REG_DWORD
Data:         4

Note: 4 is the default, the suggested maximum is 8.