Mega-slow laptop internet: any ideas why?

chequeout

Hi all and thanks in advance for any help.

My laptop has become incredibly slow with the Internet - like really "sticky" - I use Firefox and if I type things on a webpage nothing happens for ages then all the words appear in one go, it takes ages to close down pages, everything is running incredibly slowly and useless - and frustrating.

This started happening a few weeks ago. Prior to this the service was perfect, I couldn't fault it, one of the quickest Internet services I have ever used. So it is all a bit mysterious.

I have called BT a few times to see if there is a problem their end, they are saying there isn't, and I'm actually inclined to believe them. They talked me through various potential problems, I have cleared the browsing history and cookies etc, but still to no avail. In fact, it is getting slower and even worse.

I have a homehub wireless service, the hub is a matter of a few feet away from the laptop and as said, prior to a few weeks ago the service has been absolutely spot-on. I am actually inclined to believe BT that say their signal is perfect and not at fault, it has been perfect up to now and they say nothing has changed.

Therefore, could the problem be the laptop? Again, it has always run perfectly before. It is about 4-5 years old and is a Dell.

Does anyone have any idea at all what could possibly be going on?

mattduk

Could be an issue with Firefox - I've found that its not as good as it used to be. This sort of thing doesn't sound like an issue with the ISP as your broadband speed wont have any impact on closing windows and typing speed etc.

Options are:
1 - remove all but the absolute essential extensions from Firefox (personally I only think of Adblock as the essential!) and see if that helps. You might have picked up a lot or perhaps just one or two "bad" ones that are slowing things down. Firefox is notorious for issues with extensions slowing it down if they are written poorly.
2 - My personal choice, go and download google chrome which is generally faster and uses less memory etc than Firefox. Google for it, you'll find it easily (I'm not allowed to post links)

debitcardmayhem

Have you tested your speed say with speedtest.net , and also test it with an ethernet cable in place too, to rule out you wifi.
It may be just a case of your pc going slowly try https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2436849

TakeThis

Doesn't look like an Internet problem. It's either malware or not enough RAM.