10 Best Ways to Deal With Slow Internet Connections
What’s more annoying than having a great Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection but slow internet speeds? Nothing. There is nothing more annoying than this. When this happens to you – and it does, especially if you hop onto Wi-Fi hotspots at your favorite local businesses – you’ll want to do something to speed up your connection.
While we cannot contact Lifehacker headquarters and tell your public Wi-Fi hotspot to speed things up, and we cannot tell the person who is next to you in the coffee shop so that they may not be using BitTorrent today, we can give you some tips. to troubleshoot, fix, or just survive slow internet connections.
10. Check your speed (and your internet data plan).
Sometimes you have a slow internet connection because you are paying for crappy internet . Log in to your provider’s website (or call them) and find out what your plan is. Then go to fast.com (or any number of alternative sites ) and run a speed test. If what you measured is close to what you are paying for, then your network is working fine and your Internet data plan is not very fast – the best way to speed it up is to upgrade.
If you have a fast plan and don’t have a connection, it’s time to troubleshoot.
9. One-stop solution for your equipment.
Before berating your ISP, do a quick reset of your modem and router (that is, turn them off and back on ) and see if that helps. Check other computers in your home to see if they have slow Internet connections. If the problem only occurs on one computer, the problem is with that computer and not with the router or modem.
8. Know the limitations of your hardware.
If you’re paying for a super-fast internet plan – say, a fiber optic connection that gives you a mighty 1 Gbps (1000 Mbps) – you’ll never see those speeds unless the main Wi-Fi router in your home is some sort of outdated. wireless device. Likewise, you can have an awesome wireless AC router (with a top speed higher than 1Gbps), but if you are connecting to it with an older or cheaper laptop, or even a regular PlayStation 4 game console, we are going to wonder. why are your transfer rates so slow. Same deal.
We’ve talked about these issues extensively , so here’s the super-short version: Whenever possible, get a great router with a lot of bandwidth potential (two streams of wireless AC, at least) that should usually give your Boost devices the best possible speeds ( on a 5 GHz Wi-Fi network, of course). If a particular device is largely ineffective, check its network performance. He may be doing his best, but he just can’t go faster. Your network is not slow; your device just can’t keep up.
7. Correct the Wi-Fi signal.
Talking about Wi-Fi, you might find that your router and internet are fine, but your wireless signal is weak. This can cause slowdowns or at least increase the latency while browsing the web. In this case, you may need to reposition, tune and strengthen your router with a few tricks.
There is more than we could cover in one pitiful paragraph – in fact, we have a dozen of the best just to fix Wi-Fi , so check this out if you suspect your wireless signal is the problem. (And, yes, there are tons of free apps you can use to check for signal problems and see how well your router handles the rest of your concrete house.)
6. Disable or limit applications that consume a lot of traffic.
If your hardware is in working order, see if other programs are interfering with the connection. For example, if you download files using BitTorrent , normal web browsing will be slower. You should also try installing extensions such as AdBlock Plus and Privacy Badger , which will block some of the advertisements, animations, and videos that may be using your connection that are limiting your bandwidth. (You can also try a completely different browser, like Brave, which is privacy-focused.)
File sync services like Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive can move data in the background, which can consume your bandwidth and slow down your internet connection. Check out these and other bandwidth-intensive apps (like your favorite digital game download services ) to see if you can limit their download and upload speeds, which can free up web browsing space and without Netflix queuing delays. problem.
Computers often download necessary updates in the background. Depending on your operating system, you set up your computer to schedule updates when you are not using your computer . Better yet, you can limit the bandwidth it uses in case it clogs your connection (for the noblest intentions).
5. Try a new DNS server.
When you enter an address into your browser, your computer uses what is called DNS to look up and translate it into a computer-friendly IP address. However, sometimes the servers your computer uses to find this information can have problems or fail completely. Luckily, you have tons of faster and more free options like Google DNS or Cloudflare (to name two of our favorites). Or you can use a utility like Namebench to actually check which is fastest for your location and go with that.
Better DNS may not speed up the average web page load time enough for you to notice, but you never know – milliseconds are milliseconds.
4. Call your internet service provider.
If you’ve followed all the required troubleshooting steps and your internet is still slow, it’s time to call your ISP and see if the problem goes away. Remember, don’t feel like they did something wrong and treat your customer service representative with respect. You are much more likely to get good results.
And while you’re doing this, you might want to see if you can get a better deal on your internet, especially if they’ve been giving you the wrong speed all along.
3. Optimize your internet for slow connections.
It may take a while to troubleshoot slow internet problems, but in the meantime, you still need to browse. Or maybe you are in a cafe or on an airplane and there is nothing you can do about your slow speed. In this case, it’s time to optimize your network for a slower connection. Try a storage-oriented browser like Opera Mini , or look for features like Opera Turbo or Chrome Lite Mode (Android only). You can also try changing the user agent in your browser to open a mobile-optimized version of the website rather than a data-loaded desktop version, or disable images, for example, to avoid tedious page loading.
If your Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection on your laptop gets degraded and you really need to connect to the Internet, you can always link your smartphone – just be mindful of your mobile data limits. (Now is probably not the time to start burning your Netflix lineup.)
2. Work smarter
If you need to work with a slow connection, you may need to prioritize tasks differently than if your Internet connection was very fast. Divide your tasks into high throughput tasks and low throughput tasks. Do simple tasks when you have a slow connection and group all the tasks that require high bandwidth together so you can get them done if and when you get a faster connection.
Also, don’t forget about the offline modes of your apps. Some services may require you to set this up ahead of time ( Steam , Google Docs, and OneDrive’s File-On-Demand feature come to mind, as well as the Spotify download feature ), but this will give you access to everything you need – whether it’s games or docs – when your connection is bad or missing.
1. Don’t worry about it
If you’re lucky, you can quickly and stress-free restore your internet speed to sniff tobacco. But if not, you can at least try to spin it up well: as long as your work isn’t too intense, a slow internet connection can really make you more productive . After all, if Facebook takes a minute to load, you’re far less likely to drop by the “quick break” (which turns into an hour-long photo festival) when you should be working on that term. paper.
This story by Whitson Gordon was originally published 6/2013. It has been updated with new information and additional reports by Patrick Austin on 8/2017 and updated again by David Murphy on 5/2019.