Why does it take so long for web pages to load? I have an HP PC that’s less
than six months old and I have Windows 7 OS, IE9 and Chrome. All seem to take
forever to load a web page. I even have to wait to load the answer to one of
your questions in your newsletter.
In this excerpt from
Answercast #52, I look at some potential causes (and fixes) for a slow
internet connection.
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Slow web pages
So there are a bunch of things that can contribute to slow web page loading.
In short, those things include other applications trying to use your internet
connection.
Connection overload
Remember, the internet connection is in fact the bottleneck for almost
everything you do on the internet. It is the slowest part of the system.
So, if there is more than one thing on your computer trying to use the
internet connection or if you have multiple computers that are all trying to
use a shared internet connection, all of that slows down the internet
connection for you and manifests as a slowly loading web page.
Toolbar applications
Another item includes things like toolbars.
In other words, all the applications that get installed into your
browser can often negatively impact its performance and slow it down.
Overloaded memory
Another item is potentially other applications running on your system; in other words, if other programs are using your system heavily while you’re browsing the internet.
It may be that the browser you’re using doesn’t have fast enough access to
the CPU (or more typically the hard drive) in order to manage its cache.
Writing to the hard drive is the thing that then slows it down because of
these other applications trying to simultaneously use your computer.
Those are the big top three that I would point at.
Do a malware check
Definitely consider things like malware, another place to look at, although my guess is you’re probably clean.
Those are the kinds of things to investigate when you’re suffering from internet slow-downs.
Next from Answercast 52 – Can a TV get malware from my PC?
Here’s another potential: Too many tabs open in your web browser.
I had someone alert me that their machine was browsing slowly – when I arrived I discovered they had 35 tabs open on their web browser.
Each time they restarted their browser, they told it to open all of the tabs from the previous session.
After a demonstration of “Favorites”, and the difference in performance when only opening a couple of tabs, they were back in business with speedy browsing.
Badly created websites that have an over abundance of graphics, javascript images, and auto-play video in conjunction with attempting to put far too much data onto one page kills speed in a hurry regardless of your connection unless it is extremely fast.
I’ve recently had problems with two US-based major web sites — Hotmail, and turnitin.com — with incredibly slow or incomplete loads. This was experienced on two computers (XP and Win7 64bit ultimate), four browsers, lots of conditions… that had been working fine the week before. But since I live in Latin America, I began to suspect my ISP.
When I used a VPN connection, the problems went away.
TURNITIN’s tech support said “we see that sometimes.” He went on to explain that in some circumstances, how a particular ISP is handling all of the caching that goes on, and resolving all of the lookups for all of the piece-parts that make up heavily script-driven pages, can get… difficult. That the same page works with a VPN hookup, but won’t work well reliably without it, says it’s time to talk to my ISP.
Of course, my techno-Espanol is not very good. But we tried. In the meantime, we’re evaluating different VPN offerings, and getting accustomed to their quirks. (Like, I now have a great connection via Chicago, but the advertising bars on Hotmail think I’m in Denmark… but my wife is in Croatia…)
Go figure. But when you’ve torn your hair out at your end of the problem, having different diagnostic tools like a VPN can be worthwhile. (And to think that Leo’s http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com article prompted me to think “vpn..?”)