why it is so slow to download El Capitan?

I faced this problem today when I tried downloading it, and based on the suggestions here, I changed the DNS Server to 8.8.8.8 (Google's Server) and it sped up the download to about 35Minutes.

It is worth noting that 203.122.233.11 is in Australia, so depending on your location, it may not work for you (I'm in the US and it did not work for me). If it does not work for you, try other public DNS Servers

I used the google DNS and it worked as well. Be sure and restart your download after you update the DNS.

Lipaz thanks neighborhood, only your solution helped me

okay did not help.. none of the above helped for me.. only beginning was fast but I noticed on Activity Monitor that only from time to time it jumps to 1 or 2MB download speed then one minute nothing and then again 1 or 2MB just for one second.. my first download (in February?) was okay in EU but now on my second computer it's like this, from the same location, same ISP.. it's apparently problem in country, when I used VPN server from different country I instantly got 5MB download speed, 6.2GB in about half an hour

8.8.8.8 works for me in Spain. Thanks!

Thanks for your guidelines mr Harris, I deleted all the entries I already have there, I first tried with 203.122.233.11 but it doens't work in my case.

Then I deactivated my antivirus as someone suggested here but still nothing. Then I reactivated the AVirus, deleted the previons DNS and inserted 208.67.220.220, resumed download and what a great surprise, remaining time went down from 16h 30 minutes to around 1h!!!

Thank you very much

UPDATE: with 208.67.220.220 download arrived at 1.23 gb of 6.20 and stopped it, now testing other servers.

UPDATE 2: while writing first UPDATE here, downloaded interrupted by itself! It appears "an error has occured" with a FREE UPDGRADE button on the right (See picture). I push it but nothing happens. My current DNS is 208.67.220.220.

FINAL UPDATE: yesterday morning same problem, no one od DNS suggested here worked, so I contacted Apple and they told me they would have informed their engineers and to be patient, two days ago there has been some updates in El Capitan and maybe it could depend from that. This reply didn't convince me and I told them, Apple asked to be patient and to turn off Antivirus during downloaded (wich I had already done it for a while).

I did it again and I keep it turned off this time without impatience :-) download went slowly showing 11h and 30m but a little bit better, mb after mb. Finally yesterday night after about 20 hours (in 2 days) download was completed! Even if Apple didn't give me a 1 hour download solution they helped me.

I had snow leopard 10.6.8 on macbook with 4gb ram, El capitan update on the same HD went good, the machine seems faster and for now is going well and hope it gets even better :-) Thanks the same to the community who tried to give their helps for solving this issue.

Well, nothing suggested has worked, so yesterday I went to the Apple store having made an appointment. The technician downloaded El Capitan, installed it and checked the installation. It took 1h30mn and it's done!! If all else fails, that's what I recommend. Good luck everyone!

Same problem here.

Tryed everything that was mentioned before but nothing helps .... Time left 16 Hours @100Mbit Connection ...

Does anyone else still have the same problem ?

dns doesn't work for verizon fios and no download time showing either

I had the same issue, sure does look like Verizon is throttling. I looped it through a vpn and it went from 2.5 days to 20 minutes.

Awesome, it works! like other posts I also don't understand why this makes a difference in speed, but it does. My only guess is that is something related with Mac networking internally, as relative to how the internet works it should not make a difference.