Throttling Bandwidth on Firefox

Question

I currently use Firefox as my browser, and saw there was an add-on called "Firefox Throttle" that would limit my bandwidth usage for me. As I am on an overall low data cap from my ISP, I wanted to use this plugin, but found it was outdated and broken. What other way can I limit my bandwidth?

I am using Windows 7 x64

Solution 1

6 years later, a plugin is no longer needed! This has been part of the Network Monitor UI (press F12) since Firefox 55 (August 2017). Throttling allows the emulation of the bandwidth and latency of various network types, from GPRS up to WiFi:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Network_Monitor/Throttling

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1349559

Solution 2

Data usage isn't really something that an application can "throttle"-- you either use the bandwidth, or you don't. Throttling usually indicates a limit on the speed; you use the same amount of data just over a larger time.

If you're running Windows, a program called NetLimiter is really useful for monitoring how much data is being consumed by the system.

You can also do it at the network level if your router supports it. the DD-WRT and other custom firmwares (pfsense, monowall, Tomato, OpenWRT) often display data usage in the router status

Comments

[Simon Sheehan]

I have a data cap.

[user1984103]

Data usage monitoring is best done at the OS or network (router) level.

[tetram]

I disagree with 'data usage isn't really something that an application can "throttle"' - how are audio applications otherwise programmed, where you can choose to capture data at, say, 22kHz vs. 44.1 kHz? Similarly, all one would need is a timer for IP packets - and if the application already read enough data in a time period, it can simply refuse to execute read requests for the rest of the period - ergo, throttle. I would agree that specifically Firefox doesn't have that possibility, however.

[user1984103]

I wouldn't consider either of those scenarios "throttling" - Switching to a lower-bitrate audio codec or an application refusing to function are ways to reduce data usage; Throttling is where you have the same amount of data, but reduce the speed of transmission intentionally, usually with the implication that it could otherwise transmit faster. Reducing data usage is usually a way to combat how noticable the effects of throttling are.

[Daniel Labonté]

If you throttle the bandwidth used, it will take longer to reach the data cap. A page that loads slower may only partially download before you click the next link or close it. A slower web might change your habits and have you not opening 40 tabs (and then again it might change your habits to the opposite and have you open every link in a background tab to read later when it has loaded). The user is asking how to throttle the bandwidth, and this can definitely be done in principle, see e.g. the rsync parameter --bwlimit. The question is whether a Firefox plugin can do it anymore.

[E. T.]

This is not very useful, because it gets reset every time Firefox is restarted. Forget it one time, you'll blast through your limit again. It also only applies per tab, for this use case one would likely want a shared throttle for all tabs.