Slow in surfing but bittorent is fast

**smarty** · 01-31-2011, 08:37 AM

It started last week. I noticed that surfing thru safari or firefox is extremely slow. and 90% of the time, page loading will suddenly stop. but other applications like bittorent and frostwire are fast. what could be the reason? i did not do anything different in the past week.

**Sponsor** · 01-31-2011 08:37 AM

**Cake** · 01-31-2011, 09:15 AM

You could mention your ISP.

I'm on Bayantel and I noticed the same on a desktop I recently reformatted. I realized I haven't configured it yet for OpenDNS. Once I did, I'm all good; Bayan DNS servers are horrendous. Since P2P is fast for you, your raw speed isn't impaired. You could try switching to OpenDNS or Google DNS and try to see if there is an improvement.

**bacchus_3** · 01-31-2011, 09:25 AM

That's a normal behaviour when using torrent apps. It hogs your bandwidth. 'Throttle' it down by setting the maximum upload/download speed for bittorrent. What those values are you should experiment. For me I keep my upload speed to 5KBps and leave download to unlimited to have smooth surfing experience - but slow streaming. If I need streaming I limit download to 5KBps.

**smarty** · 01-31-2011, 09:26 AM

I am using PLDT MyDSL. Before, it was fast. Well not that fast but not as slow as what i have now.

How do I switch to OpenDNS or Google DNS?

**smarty** · 01-31-2011, 11:41 AM

Before, when I close the torrent apps, the speed increased but now, closing down the torrents won't be of any help on the speed.

**bacchus_3** · 01-31-2011, 11:54 AM

@smarty, Torrents can be very resource intensive it bogs down the router (its the IP ports). Try restarting your router. You may be downloading torrents that have so many clients/peers.

**coffeelover** · 01-31-2011, 12:46 PM

An alternate explanation for this problem is your ISP could be using a transparent proxy to cache web pages (save bandwidth). I noticed this with my connection (Globelines Broadband). All browsing go through a transparent proxy. This is a problem when the transparent proxy slows down due to too many connections. I couldn't get globelines to acknowledge or fix this problem at all.

**Cake** · 01-31-2011, 01:15 PM

@smarty

Go to System Preferences>Network. Select the connection you are using; either Airport or Ethernet and click on the button marked "Advanced...". Go to the DNS tab and add the following IP addresses:

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

If you have an existing entry on your DNS Server list, drag these two to the top with "8.8.8.8" above the other. Click "Okay" on the dialog window and finally "Apply" on the Network prefpage. The effect should be immediate.

Edit: These are Google's DNS servers, btw.

**bacchus_3** · 01-31-2011, 03:57 PM

Just want to correct misconception that DNS helps speeds up connection. DNS only helps speed up connection when you are surfing the web with URLs (e.g. "http://blah.blah.blah").

Kahit OpenDNS, Google DNS, or Globe DNS walang magagawa yan if your torrent eats 90% of your bandwidth and left with 10% to use for surfing.

To the TS: How much speed does your torrent download say in your torrent client? What DSL speed subscription are you on? What is your current effective speed? Baka your effective speed is 500KBps and torrents use 490KBps. 10KBps may not be enough for your 'normal' surfing.

**SE20** · 01-31-2011, 04:38 PM

I was suffering the same thing... and learned that my router was the problem. Changed router, solved problem. Not sure if this applies to you.

I observe that you have been downloading and surfing without a problem until last week. Therefore something changed in the last week. If what changed is not the way you use your system, then it's something in your system that has changed.