IMAC with Safari and Virgin media cable - very slow internet connection

[sasguru]

Having recently dumped Talk Talk (don't touch with a barge-pole BTW) recently changed to a Virgin media cable package.
Which is fine except for one thing - When using Apple (v. 10.6.4) and Safari, internet connection is painfully slow.
Other laptops running Windows are fine.

Anyone had a similar problem?

[yorkshireman]

Having recently dumped Talk Talk (don't touch with a barge-pole BTW) recently changed to a Virgin media cable package.
Which is fine except for one thing - When using Apple (v. 10.6.4) and Safari, internet connection is painfully slow.
Other laptops running Windows are fine.

Anyone had a similar problem?

First Install Chrome or Firefox and see if they are slow too.

[d000hg]

Having recently dumped Talk Talk (don't touch with a barge-pole BTW) recently changed to a Virgin media cable package.
Which is fine except for one thing - When using Apple (v. 10.6.4) and Safari, internet connection is painfully slow.
Other laptops running Windows are fine.

Anyone had a similar problem?

Have you done an internet/broadband speed test from both machines?

[cojak]

I've got to change my ISP before the end of this month.

I'm dreading it.

[vetran]

Plusnet - PM me and I might get a rebate for recommending. Not bad, service is pleasant enough. They do FTTC wahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If Vince & George are paying for it then Zen are great service wise but not the cheapest. (I put the work people on that and nothing but compliments about the service from Salesmen & engineers).

[vetran]

could be DNS (slow to find sites) or MTU / packet size mismatch (slow to download inline images and throughput) (AFAIR its freebsd under the hood which had an aggressive default MTU) weirdos. Ping local router plus browse router admin page and compare speeds between the two to decide if its a local issue. If it isn't do an nslookup on both plus a ping -f -l.

But Chrome seems to gloss over most things.

GIYF.

[Moscow Mule]

It's superfast on my macbook at the mo.

Is the iMac connected at a crap speed to the router?

How to show Wireless Network Connection Speed in OS X » Paul Maunders | Web log

[RichardCranium]

Plusnet

I used PlusNet in Somerset and when I moved to Coventry. I spoke to a human and they made the transition easy.

When I started renting in the North West, they gave me the recommendation rebate for having a 2nd account with them.

When I terminated the Coventry account (giving them no notice), they gave me a discount on my North West account to make up for losing the recommendation rebate!

There was one accounting error ... and that was a misunderstanding by me and was actually not an error. They explained it well. This was when all the snow happened: I called their call centre and the recorded message said: "Because of the snow we are getting lots of calls. But, because our staff could not get in, our call centre has VERY long call wait times. So all our staff are working from home and responding to support calls by email instead so please try that method if you can." They responded to my email in about 90 seconds!

The "fair use" limit I opted for was 10Gb (I think). I have only exceeded it when I downloaded about 12 Linux CD ISOs, which cost me a £5 (pre-approved by me after an email warning from them) to extend the limit for that month to something bigger. Some other ISPs really sting you badly for exceeding the limit.

Overnight download traffic does not count toward the "fair use" limit.

Having used Demon (twats), BT (what was I thinking?), NTL (hell), Virgin (bastardy bastardy tossrag bastard bastards) and PlusNet, PlusNet are FAR better than the others.


Edit: Sorry if I have gone . It's cojak's fault

[Sysman]

The "fair use" limit I opted for was 10Gb (I think). I have only exceeded it when I downloaded about 12 Linux CD ISOs, which cost me a £5 (pre-approved by me after an email warning from them) to extend the limit for that month to something bigger. Some other ISPs really sting you badly for exceeding the limit.

Overnight download traffic does not count toward the "fair use" limit.

I suggest you familiarise yourself with cron (timed batch jobs) and wget and/or curl. Do future hefty downloads at times that are classified as "overnight".

(not always easy - some sites hide the download URLs using Javascript, essentially meaning that you are supposed to sit in front of the thing to set it off)

[Sysman]

Having recently dumped Talk Talk (don't touch with a barge-pole BTW) recently changed to a Virgin media cable package.
Which is fine except for one thing - When using Apple (v. 10.6.4) and Safari, internet connection is painfully slow.
Other laptops running Windows are fine.

Anyone had a similar problem?

I don't think this is the total answer but I found the "Top Sites" feature on Safari to be a resource hog, so disabled it (somewhere in Preferences, I think).