Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

How do I disable not just LINK prefetching, but DNS prefetching in FF7/FF8?

justthisguyyaknow
justthisguyyaknow
more options

I have a local (intranet) file with hundreds of links to various sites, which is my FireFox home page.

I don't wish all of these links' IP addresses to be requested constantly, when I will be clicking on approximately one at any point in time.

Even with [link] prefetching disabled in about:config, the [DNS] requests are still prefetching. There was a way, I believe, to disable this in the FF3 or so configuration, but I can't find it in newer versions.

I have a local (intranet) file with hundreds of links to various sites, which is my FireFox home page. I don't wish all of these links' IP addresses to be requested constantly, when I will be clicking on approximately one at any point in time. Even with [link] prefetching disabled in about:config, the [DNS] requests are still prefetching. There was a way, I believe, to disable this in the FF3 or so configuration, but I can't find it in newer versions.

Chosen solution

Problem solved! I was looking in about:config for the name "network.dns.disablePrefetch", so I could set it to True. I couldn't find this in the config anymore, so I asked the question.

Turns out, even FF8 will still obey this setting, though the actual entry must be explicitly entered. To do this, if anyone's needing such info:

  1. Open Firefox, and enter About:config into the address bar.
  2. Right-click on the list of entries; new >> boolean.
  3. The name for the boolean: "network.dns.disablePrefetch" (exactly as shown, but not including quotes).
  4. The value: True
Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (1)

justthisguyyaknow
justthisguyyaknow Question owner
more options

Chosen Solution

Problem solved! I was looking in about:config for the name "network.dns.disablePrefetch", so I could set it to True. I couldn't find this in the config anymore, so I asked the question.

Turns out, even FF8 will still obey this setting, though the actual entry must be explicitly entered. To do this, if anyone's needing such info:

  1. Open Firefox, and enter About:config into the address bar.
  2. Right-click on the list of entries; new >> boolean.
  3. The name for the boolean: "network.dns.disablePrefetch" (exactly as shown, but not including quotes).
  4. The value: True