Slow web browsing in Tiger - Safari and IE

I work at many different locations with my PowerBook and experience this problem occasionally.
Usually it occurs when I have a DNS entry that doesn't match the Internet Provider or the router does not provide one respectively.
To solve this issue I created several different locations. I change between them, before I attempt to connect to a network - works fine.

Further information can be found http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106653>here.

Regards

Greg

I am experiencing the same problems.

When I connect from my office or home, I don't have any problems. But when I am at another office location, I have a severely delayed internet browsing experience. Other macs have the same problem (G4's, G5's, laptops or desktops, or mini's). Yet, the Macs running OS 10.3 don't have the same slowness issues there.

The internet connection is shared, and it's a windows-dominated office. Therefore, I don't know if this is a windows thing, proxy-thing, or what.

Please help!
Everett

First of all, create a new location - test for example, so you can easily revert to your old settings. See the link in my last post for details.

Then choose Network Port Configuration in the Show menu.
Deactivate not needed ports (probably you only need Built-In Ethernet, possibly Bluetooth for you wireless keyboards, mice etc).
Choose Built-In Ethernet in the Show menu.
Click on the TCP/IP tab.
Enter your settings (normally DHCP should be fine)
Apply now.

Enter the IP of 1 - 2 DNS servers of your internet provider. If you don't know the IP, go google for DNS <provider>, or ask here. If you don't know the name of your provider, ask your network administrator or get our your latest internet bills. At work, you need to talk to the system administrator, because there is a high probability that there is a corporate DNS server.
As you talk to the administrator you should ask for proxy settings as well. You could use a .pac file or the type, IP and ports for this proxy.

Apply now. Test.

If this doesn't produce the desired results, make Safari faster with this.

If this doesn't produce desired results, quit Safari, rename /User/yourshortusername/Library/Preferences/com.apple.safari.plist to com.apple.safari.bak. Restart Safari and Empty Cache (in the Safari menu).

If this doesn't produce desired results, choose the Ethernet tab and change Configure from automatically to Manually.
Change Maximum Packet Size from 1500 to a value of 1500 - 2^n, 1468 for example. Leave the other settings alone.

If this doesn't produce desired results, get a faster web browser, here or here.

The DNS settings are most important to OS X, that said change only one step after the other, because if something messes things up you can tell exactly what you did and post back here.

Regards

Greg

By the way, browsing speed is very relative.

It is your experience - not mine.
The site you test could have bandwidth problems. So always surf different sites when testing, preferably sites that are NOT "optimized" for Microsoft Internet Explorer but real Mac sites like:
http://www.apple.com/
http://www.mac.com/
http://www.macupdate.com/

You can test your bandwith here or here.

Agreed - speed is relative, but I am sitting on 59k download rated when I have a2meg connection. Clearly there is something wrong.

Send me the URL of this download, please

This thread is/was about slow browsing experience not about slow downloads. Safari takes its time to build the web page in the background before it shows it on the screen, thus my recommendation to change the web browser.

59k is about a fourth of what you can expect, sure, there is something wrong... it could be the cables you use, because they make your router unhappy or it could be an old network hub that is dropping packets. I don't see your specific set-up. But we have to start somewhere.

Which steps mentioned above did you try?
Just ask again if you don't understand something I said there, I will try to explain.

By the way, download rates are measured in kilobytes per second, bandwidth in kilobits per second. For example 2mbps = 2000000 bps = 250000 Bbs = 244 KBps.
You have to reduce this by an estimated ratio of 12% accounting for delays, packet collision and loss and so on. In the end you get a download rate of about 215 KBps, seldom higher than 250, but often lower, because the servers you download from have to pay for their bandwidth, thus it is limited.

Here's a fast one - usually:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/xserveraidadmintools15.html

I know you don't like to hear this, but this has nothing to do with the code but with the configuration of OS X. Apple won't provide a fix, because there is nothing to fix. Everything is implemented as it should be.

We just have to find out what is wrong with your specific set-up.

Regards

Gregor

Before I upgraded to Tiger from OS 10.3.9, I tried the following on Safari (I found the information at the G5 User Support site), and it made it faster. I have no idea if this will work for the most resent version of Safari, nor if it will screw it up. But here it goes:

1. Quit Safari
2. Open the Terminal and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebkitInitialTimedLayoutDelay 0.25

--------

According to the person who posted the information, Safari's delay is 1.0, FYI

I imagine that one could give it a try and see how it goes, since one can always go back to the Terminal and change "0.25" to "1.0"

Again, since I don't know if this change is a good idea, proceed at your own risk.

It is safe to take it down further, this is the entry from my com.apple.Safari.plist:

WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay = "0.001";

just replace 0.25 with 0.001

Jan J.

I have been experiencing the same issues with Safari and Firefox. I just thought it was my new Tiger doing it until I read this post.

I had a look at the DNS's on my machine, then went to my router to see what DNS's the provider has. It seems they must have changed it a while back, and Tiger is sensitive to it.
So, I simply changed my 2 DNS's to the single DNS supplied by the provider, and, whammo. My 'web browsing' is back to normal.

Thanks for this thread though..

Thanks for sharing your experience!

madconqueror-

do you happen to know why Tiger is causing such a delay vs 10.3? I don't fully understand why changing DNS will help and why their is a problem in the first place. Ever since I upgraded to Tiger my browsing experience on either Safari or IE is at least 50% SLOWER. Suggestions?

thanks