As I described in this tweak for the Firefox browser, there is also a tweak to make Internet Explorer run faster by increasing the number of simultaneous downloads. With Firefox you can easily go into the configuration settings and make a couple of adjustments. Unfortunately with IE 7, you have to make these adjustments in the Windows registry. As always, be sure to create a restore point before making changes to the registry.

Similar to Firefox, Internet Explorer’s default settings are to only allow 2 files to be downloaded at the same time. Obviously, this will restrict the speed at which you can download images, pdf documents, and videos, etc.. However, the web pages you visit are also downloaded to your computer, so it stands to reason that increasing the number of simultaneous file downloads will increase your Internet surfing speed, as well as boosting the speed when you’re downloading files.

As with the Firefox tweaks, only those using a high-speed Internet connection will see better results from these adjustments.

To make Internet Explorer 7 download faster, start regedit by type “regedit.exe” in the Run command line for Windows XP users or just “regedit” in the search box for Vista users.

1. Once regedit is loaded, navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings

You should be here:

2. Right click in the empty space, and create a new DWord (32-bit) value by choosing New > DWord Value and name it
MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server (The 0 beside Server is a zero)

3. Double click this entry and modify the value to the preferred maximum number of downloads. The maximum value you can put here is 10, which gives you five time the number of simultaneous downloads.

4. Create another DWord and name it MaxConnectionsPerServer. Double click it as before and set it to the value you used for MaxconnectionsPer1_0Server.

You’re done. Now get out there and test your new download speed.