Tweaking Web Applications with Fiddler
Understanding caching, http performance and compression are key to winning the battle to deliver fast internet applications, especially in the context of technologies like AJAX where packets are flying in and out of your browser. Fiddler is a must for any developer trying to dig down to understand how their web application performs.
There are two great articles on MSN about the software:
- Fiddler PowerToy - Part 2: HTTP Performance "Learn how to build a faster Web site using the Microsoft Fiddler HTTP
Debugger. In this article, we'll use Fiddler to explore HTTP
performance, caching, and compression."
- Fiddler Power Toy - Part 1: HTTP Debugging which is the first article in the series.
Yesterday Digital Media Minute reported the launch of IETab which is a Firefox extension which enables you to view pages in Firefox but with the IE engine. I was digging around for an explanation of how it works and discovered that because this plugin uses the same HTTP layer - WinInet, you also see the pages requested in Fiddler if you have it open.
The reason Fiddler doesn't report on Firefox requests out of the box is that it configures the WinInet proxy alone and Firefox has it's own configuration.
Fiddler monitoring Firefox requests
If you want to get
fiddler to listen to Firefox requests too, go to Tools > Options
> Connection > Connection Settings and check "Manual Proxy
Configuration", "Use the same proxy for all protocols" and enter
127.0.0.1 port 8888 and click OK. Note that this will pose problems if
you close Fiddler as your proxy is gone, to solve the problem change
back to "direct connection to internet".