Slow browsing
 

I'm finding that websites are opening slowly, so I guess it's a call to tech support in the morning. In the meantime, is there anything obvious I can be doing to save time? So far I've checked for spyware, ran an AV check, unplugged the cable to allow the pc to search for my IP address, rebooted and defraged, all to no avail. Is there anything else I should be doing? Anything obvious I have missed?

I'm connected through a cable modem and this problem seems to have developed overnight. I haven't changed anything on my pc and "Broadband Medic" (which doesnt seem to be much kop, quite frankly) tells me there is no problem with my connection.

I'm not averse to calling NTL support but why waste their time if I can fix it myself and I've always found them to be a bit "hit and miss"...depends who you get to talk to I guess.

Re: Slow browsing
 

Try a new proxy. A list is here

How to change your proxy is here . That's for I.E. For Firefox, scroll down

Re: Slow browsing
 

I've not been using a proxy at all....so I don't see how proxy could be the problem. ???

Re: Slow browsing
 

Well, try one, see if there is a difference.

Re: Slow browsing
 

You're *always* using a proxy*.

If you don't have one manually specified in your brower's settings, then you still use one anyway, but "transparently".

Bit about proxies: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/article.php?a=14

On the CF toolbar, go to "Quicklinks" on the right, & then "Connection Information". This will tell you if you're using a proxy or not.







*Unless ntl have turned your local ones off for some reason. Happens sometimes.

Re: Slow browsing
 

Well I attached myself to a German server and that seems to have improved matters. That CF test seems to think its a Leeds one but it aint!! Looks like it was a server problem. I'm not really sure about proxys as everyone I talk to seems to say "oooooh........security risk".....but hopefully NTL will sort it out in due course.

Re: Slow browsing
 

Contacted NTL and they suggested the following proxies
62.254.32.4 port8080
62.255.32.4 port8080
62.255.0.4 port 8080
65.160.98.31 port80

None of them worked, in fact they made it worse. NTLTech support had no answers and suggested it was my PC that was the problem!!! How can it be? Everything was fine on Saturday, it happened literally overnight. I'm now using a proxy suggested by a friend, I believe it's German and up to press I have no problems.

This has left me with serious doubts about the quality of NTLs service and support. Their tech people have never really been much help apart from one time and, as a complete and utter novice, I have to say, yet again, if it wasn't for the kindness and generosity of the folks on here with their time and advice...I'd be up sh*t creek and if the German proxy stops working, I may well yet be!!!

Re: Slow browsing
 

It seems strange that your browsing speeds increase when you go through this German proxy because despite what proxy settings you enter you are still going through one of NTL's proxies as mentioned by Matt D. They use transparent proxies and all you are doing is just making your connection go to another machine before it retrieves the page which should slow it down even more not speed it up.

When you say slow, how slow is it?

Perhaps you can try another browser without any additional proxy settings to see if it does the same. Also, if you have another PC available check out the speed from that PC.
__________________

I had no problems connecting to those proxy ip addresses that you listed.

Re: Slow browsing
 

Sites take up to a minute to open, msn.co.uk doesnt open at all but its not just msn sites that are affected. Putting in this German proxy seems to have sorted it out. Sadly I only own one PC so I cant check it out on another. The woman at Tech support seemed to think the German server is an ntl one but to be honest, I work at a call centre myself and I know an Indian reading from a script when I hear one. No prejudice here, if she can do the job, fine but no way is this an NTL server.

Re: Slow browsing
 

You have cleaned up behind you properly haven't you?Have you tried browsing with firefox or opera?

Re: Slow browsing
 

Firstly, your friends that suggest using a proxy is a security risk are a bit misguided. Proxies have a legitimate purpose, and ISPs very very often use them. As Matt says, with NTL, even if you don't specify a proxy yourself, your internet traffic will automagically be routed to use one transparently. For your own piece of mind, it's possible to determine who owns a proxy by looking up who the IP address is registered to. That would confirm whether the customer advisor was being a bit liberal with the truth ;)

It's possible to use other proxies, not just ones owned by your ISP (as you're doing currently by using a German one). There are other UK based ones which would probably give you a better response time. Before the German one goes belly-up, browse Google for a list of UK-based proxy servers, so you can switch to one of these if you suddenly find the German one not working.

Finally, did the customer advisor ask you to quantify the performance issue? Did they ask you to try pinging some servers, and note the response. In fact, can you do that and paste the response below? Just open a command prompt, and type ping www.yahoo.com - I wouldn't bother pinging any Microsoft sites, as they've disabled the ICMP responses... er, which means basically it won't work :D Paste the output here for us to see.

Once you've done that, you can also try monitoring the exact route that your network traffic is taking to a particular website by using the tracert command. Back in the command prompt, type tracert www.yahoo.com and paste the results in here (delete your own IP address from the results for secrutiy reasons).

That will show us where any bottleneck is between yourself and the website.

Re: Slow browsing
 

I tried to get a ping result from yahoo as you sugested by using "Run" but the results keep disappearing instantaneously from my screen!!! Am I missing something??

I will definately check out that site you recommended, thanks for that. Things seem to be OK with browsing at present but youre right, the German one is a machine and like all machines it can go wrong obviously.

I'll check out the Firefox browser later in the week, I work nights and to be honest, you dont want to be getting up and messing with a pc then have to go off to work with the job half done!!

Re: Slow browsing
 

you need to be running the ping command in a dos box - /start/run/cmd - enter

then ping www.bbc.co.uk (or whatever)

then right click, choose 'mark'

& highlight the text you want to copy e.g.

as for Firefox it will run alongside Internet Explorer, it is an alternative, not a replacement, installation takes 10 minutes at most.. :)

Re: Slow browsing
 

Right, thanks for that, I'll do that Friday as work beckons and theyre 12 hour night shifts!! I'm assuming that I don't need to have the site open? Firefox I have now downloaded and will be trying it. I looked on google for the list of UK proxies...jeez theres thousands of sites!!! Do you have a recommendation for a novice as to which site is best?


Thanks again for the help with this, I wish I could do the ping tests now but like I said, I have a 12 hr night shift in front of me and as things are working fine at present, I'd really rather start testing when I'm "fresh" lol.

If you could recommend the best proxy site, the one that you expert types use, that'd be a big help though.

Thanks again for all your help, hope you all have a lovely evening.

Re: Slow browsing
 

:LOL: at 'expert types' - an 'expert' is someone who has already made all the mistakes & can now pass on how to work around or avoid the main problems :)

On that basis i would say, in my opinion, it is best to try using the ntl proxies, ideally 'transparently', but if necessary set one as 'explicit'. Personally I would avoid using proxies external to the NTL network as there are potential security issues.

In my case I have found the Nottingham proxies, which my connections uses 'transparently', by default, have been very reliable, lately. :)

Thanks for your good wishes :tu:

Re: Slow browsing
 

Your best bet for a list of NTL proxies is the link that Mal posted in post #2.

I'm assuming that you're using a USB connection to your computer, right? If so, you may find that converting to Ethernet (if you have Ethernet on your PC) will give you better speeds. You might also want to consider uninstalling that c*appy BroadBand Medic software, that won't be helping matters either.

There's plenty of posts already on CF about changing from USB to Ethernet, and also about removing Medic, but if you decide to go for it and you need any help just shout!

Re: Slow browsing
 

Thanks, I'm already on ethernet, I got rid of BB Medic, it was useless....now don't laugh...that site was a list of places of proxy servers. I didn't understand. I thought a proxy was a series of 4 groups of numbers and a port. I click on Internet properties, LAN, tick the box, put in the numbers and port, click OK and the job is done.

On Mals site I see.... brnt-cache-6.server.ntli.net
brnt-cache-7.server.ntli.net

To be honest, I'm still learning and that might as well be in French, what am I supposed to do with it? It's not that I'm a thickie, it's just that I'm still learning and whilst I've come on in leaps and bounds over the last 3 months, mainly thanks to the help and generosity of you guys, I have to say I'm stumped here.

I should say that I am using the proxy and port 80, and its set to automatically detect settings but not use an automatic configuration script (whatever the hell one of them is!!)

Re: Slow browsing
 

using the 'numbers' version of the proxy address (called the IP) avoids problems where the DNS (Domain Name Server) which 'translates' a name such as 'www.bbc.co.uk' into the IP, isn't working properly.

In practice either the number, or the name, should work - the port should be 8080 :)

Personally I would uncheck, 'automatically detect settings'...

Re: Slow browsing
 

So I can, in effect, copy and paste the names of the servers, as printed on that list, into my LAN, use port 8080, uncheck "automatically detect settings" and off I go??? Please feel free to verbally slap me around if I've misinterpreted here but that seems to be what you're saying, yes?

Just out of interest, what difference will unchecking "automatically detect settings" make? I've always had it ticked as it appears to be the default setting.

Still, that seems to have resolved that issue for me, assuming I read you right, and it's great because being still a novice, I've learned something there.

One a wider level though, I am concerned at the fact that NTL were unable to resolve the issue and what I did forget to add was that this isn't the first time it's happened. Exactly the same thing happened a few months ago and again NTL Tech support suggested it was my PC at fault. It was shiny and new then, in fact I even took it back to the shop, they gave it a pretty thorough check over and pronounced it adware free, trojan free, virus free and 100% operational....surely, and correct me if I'm wrong here...I shouldn't need a proxy on my LAN? It should run fine without. All I got from Tech Support, to be honest was "well it SHOULD work...must be your PC...nothing much else we can do".... I'm paraphrasing but thats about the size of it. Well it certainly aint my PC, I use it for internet browsing, IM Messenger, e mail and the occasional game, hardly asking a lot of it is it...if tech support insist it's not their problem, is there anywhere else one can go, further up the chain perhaps?

Well maybe thats really for another thread, just thought I'd make the observation.

Again I thank you for your generous help.

Re: Slow browsing
 

The test is correct.

At the point you posted that, you were being routed via the Leeds transparent proxy array (accessing CF via leed-cache-3.server.ntli.net).

The thing that many people forget when using non ntl proxy servers is that you cannot access a foreign proxy server via port 80, as ntl will intercept it and route you via theirs - this is what transparent proxying does. Also, if you have no proxy specified then again, ntl will intecept the port 80 (http) traffic and route you via your default array (which is Leeds in your case).

BTW, Interesting list they gave you to try, the first three are ntl servers, the last one appears to be a US based server, and would fail anyway as it specifies port 80 (see above).
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Yes, but you can only use one at a time. :)

It will stop IE trying to find a proxy server itself - something it will fail doing. It's more designed for internal corporate networks than home / internet setups.

Re: Slow browsing
 

Well, the proxy server is now off and normal service seems to have been resumed.....hmmm, well almost normal. I use hotmail as my e mail and every now and again it asks you to put in the series of numbers and letters it flashes up, to prove to it you're not some kind of machine sending spam I assume.

I dutifully do this and it rather surprisingly asks me to do it again, and again, and again....in fact it never seems to "see" it. To cut a long story short, eventually I call my friend in Glasgow, who also happens to be an NTL customer and he does it for me no problem at all.

It's not a major issue, other than the inconvenience, I just wondered if anyone else had come across this. It actually happens on an e card site that I am a member of too, I sign in, go to the cards and it continually asks me to sign in again. A reboot seems to have sorted that out, for how long, who knows.

On the general subject of web browsing, at present I seem to be getting little hiccups here and there, the above mentioned, the occasional syntax error, application errors every now and again.....my pc frankly appears to have a bit of a cold!!! It's coming up to 2 years old, and I know it had AOL on it before this. I've done all the obvious stuff, defrag, anti virus, anti spyware etc but still something isn't quite right. I don't fancy letting PC world get their hands on it, so is there anything I could be looking at here at home?

Anyway, browsing appears to be up to speed at least now, so thats a plus.

Re: Slow browsing
 

Hi,

I've been having just the same problems - slow browsing and unable to access some sites at all - ever since installation od a SACM and upgrade to 2MB service on Friday. PINGs to some addresses showed 100% packet loss. I tried your suggestion of setting an explicit Proxy server about an hour ago and all seems to be well so far.

Thanks for the usefull advice.

Re: Slow browsing
 

I tried to look at a site today and it said "remote linking of images not allowed". I haven't got a clue as to the significance of this. I got a reply back from MSNs technical team about the signing in problem, but its the standard mix of checking your firewall, deleting temporary internet files etc. Basically, the same thing they seem to advise for every query. I'm definately not needing to use a proxy now, as sites open fine. Like I said, it's all a bit puzzling really. I really dont have the faintest idea what "remote linking of images" is, I do know that since I signed up to NTL, things don't seem to run smoothly and it seems to be fighting one problem after another. In fairness, it might not be NTLs fault, might be this old PC....I'm mystified though.