Having a slow internet connection can be a frustrating experience. The frustration is even greater when you cannot work out whether the slowness is caused by a problem with your computer, poor service from your internet provider, or an issue with the website you are trying to access. The following three reasons are all major causes of slow internet; read on to find out which one could be affecting your connection and what you can do about it.
Viruses
If your internet connection has suddenly slowed down, it could be a sign that your computer has been infected by a virus. There are a huge number of viruses online, lying in wait to infect your computer. You may have opened an infected email attachment, clicked on a harmful link, or downloaded a piece of malware onto your computer.
Viruses can slow down your internet connection by using it for their own malicious purposes. Some viruses turn your computer into a node in a network, using your internet connection to spread to other computers or even carry out criminal activity. Other types of malicious software, known as spyware, infect your browser so that they can find out your passwords. If you notice your anything strange about your browser, close it immediately and run an anti-virus program to check for infection.
Also Read: Increase Browsing Speed in Mozilla Firefox
You might see advertisements online for programs that claim to remove spyware and speed up your connection. Do not click on these advertisements. They are designed to trick you into downloading harmful software onto your computer. Once installed, this software is likely to slow down your internet connection even further. Only trust anti-virus and anti-spyware products that you have researched so you know they are safe.
Server Issues
When investigating a slow internet connection, the first thing you should do is to find out whether all sites are loading slowly, or just some of them. Slowness on a particular website is likely to be caused by a problem with the server that hosts that site; for example, too many people may be trying to access the site at once, creating more traffic than the server can cope with. If this is the case, there is not much that you can do about it, other than trying to connect again at a later time. However, if all sites are loading slowly for you, then a problem with your connection is likely to be to blame.
Dial-Up Internet
Are you using a modem to connect to the Internet using your phone line? This kind of connection, which is known as a dial-up connection, is much slower than other types of connection, such as broadband or cable Internet. Even though a dial-up connection might have been adequate for your needs in the past, the Internet has moved on; there are now many more videos and interactive applications online. To make full use of all that the Internet has to offer, you should consider upgrading your dial-up connection to broadband, cable or satellite Internet.