Is there a way to break down the delays in my internet experience?

Factual Questions
1

The “speed test” sites I’ve found all agree that I always have a certain “sustained download speed” for copying a file.
I never care about that, as I seldom download new applications and can happily wait for them.
What I care about is the delay in a normal page load, like reading this site or a newspaper site.
Sometimes it goes fast and sometimes ever so slow. And yet the test sites will display the normal rate.
Sometimes the tag at the bottom of the IE window will say Searching for…, Watiing for…, Transferring from…,

Can I tell which is the laggard today, the browser, the ISP, the address-resolver system, etc.?

2

If you get consistent speed test results, then your browser and your ISP are behaving consistently. Most speed test sites simply time how long it takes for your computer to download then send a big lump of data - typically they use something like a 10 MB MP3 file.

Any other slowness you encounter is likely to be with the websites you’re visting - their servers, their ISP, etc. Also possible is traffic congestion or some fault along the way as the data is moving through the Internet. There are enough servers, routers and links out there that it’s quite possible that your traffic never goes exactly the same route each time you visit a particular website.

3

This assumes you have windows: open a dos box (start - run - cmd) and do:

tracert SlowSite.com

to whatever site you’re having a problem with. It will trace the path from you to that site, and the time for each leg.

4

That looks interesting. But somehow the results were gone before I could read them. I guess maybe a screen capture.

5

I remember now, use the Command Line system tool accessory. Boy, that takes me back!

6

Your slowness may be because you are using an ad blocker. Ads are one of the first things most sites try to load and loading can pause your browser as the sites try to get your browser to load the ads.

You can try a public DNS server to see if you can do better than using your providers DNS. List.
I use the 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2 at times when my provider has problems. A bad response time from the DNS server can delay the loading severely as most pages have many external links.

The most important thing is the server for the site you visit. If it’s bogged down then you’re bogged down.

7

Can that be solved with the HOSTS file? Say I know that straightdope.com resolves to 209.104.5.198. Would I be saving a little time putting that into my HOSTS ?

8

One of the delays seems to be waiting for that omnipresent Netflix popunder window to load. Is there any way to prevent that?
I’ve got AdBlockPlus, which I suspect lets the thing load but then blocks it from appearing. The window appears, though, and has to be closed at some point.

9

It’s generally not worth it. If the problem site is this board your worrying over nothing that can be fixed by you.

10

Erm, did you mean “aren’t using an ad blocker”?

Ad blockers like Adblock Plus run a battery of pattern matches on every URL found in the page, to determine whether or not the browser should bother getting them. The pattern matching does add a very small delay (probably imperceptible, depending on the number of patterns to check, and their complexity), but you’ll almost certainly save more time than you waste by avoiding to download the ads (as well as doing hostname lookup etc. for them).

11

No I didn’t. I’ve found when adblockers are running that sometimes the web site will delay loading while it tries new ways to to load advertising on your browser. Turning off the adblocker has sometimes sped up the load because the first ad loaded. The only way to find out is turn it off and try it. I’m speaking of a fast connection too, not a dial up account.