Throttle Plug-In for Firefox
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
I was just working on a web project where I used Mediabox Advanced to call a .html page which a Flash .swf file which again calls an external .flv file top play. Also, the .swf file calls an other external .swf file - the controls for the Player. So far so good. Testing locally the files was fine as long as you wanna test certain things, like linkages and positioning of elements and calls. But something I could not test properly locally and also on a testing server is how the environment works with different buffering setups. I need to say, that I worked with a fairly powerfull connection, something approx. 1 MB/s - that means I could not test a slow connection in an easy way.
Luckily, I looked around and I found a great Firefox Plug-in called Firefox Throttle - exactly what I was looking for. What Throttle does? Very simple: It breaks down the connection you are surfing with Firefox to a slower, custom speed. Just go to Options and select Dial-Up to browse instantly with Firefox with a Dial-Up speed connection. You can always simply go back to your normal standard speed.
With this simple but great Plug-in I was able to test easily different buffering settings for my project - to see what you normally don’t see - with a high speed connection.