Is it my PC or is it Firefox?

[Benchwayze]

I have great trouble and long waits for my browser to go to different pages. Especially in UKW. Now what's the trouble likely to be.
Browser (Firefox) ? IE doesn't work at all, and keeps telling me I am not connected to the internet.
Connection? I know I am online!
UKW itself. This doesn't happen on other sites; not much anyway.
Or my laptop (2 years old)

None of these problems are apparent on my desktop PC.

Should I look for a better laptop, than this Toshiba Satellite?

Regards
John :mrgreen:

 

[mseries]

Hard to say. If your desktop works OK then it's not your connection. Do you use Firefox on the desktop ? are all settings the same ? Same plugins etc. Are you using wifi on the laptop ? have you tried Chrome ?

 

[wizard]

I had the same problem myself. Changing from Firefox to chrome did help a bit but a new computer worked even better. i have both Firefox and chrome but i find chrome muck better

 

[Benchwayze]

And I have just finished 3 years of mastering firefox!

Chrome leaves me bemused, bewildered, and even beguiled! :mrgreen:
But I'll give it a try.

I think I have 'why-fhy', but I am not sure. I don't have to plug a modem into this laptop, so maybe that's wi-fi.

I might go for a new Mac laptop though. Maybe it's windows!

Thanks folks. Much obliged.

Just downloaded the set-up for Google Chrome. No problem. Tried to install, but it then tells me I am not connected to the internet. How can that be when I just downloaded the initial file? It's a mystery without a solution. It also happened when I tried to install Open Office.
I am going to bin this laptop!

John

 

[mseries]

so you are wireless, then you are using wifi. It could be this that's slowing your browsing experience down. Can you try pluging the laptop into your router using a ethernet cable ? (Your desktop is likely to be doing this already, borrow the cable from there).

I presume this laptop was OK at some point and it's deteriorated ? If so, it can be fixed up. They last resort is reinstalling Windows or another OS such as Linux to make it like it was when it was new. It might be all the accumulated junk over the years that windows likes to keep around. It's hard to

 

[Paul Hannaby]

Perhaps your wifi connection is intermittent? Have you tried using the laptop close to your router to see if that makes a difference?

 

[Benchwayze]

so you are wireless, then you are using wifi. It could be this that's slowing your browsing experience down. Can you try pluging the laptop into your router using a ethernet cable ? (Your desktop is likely to be doing this already, borrow the cable from there).

I presume this laptop was OK at some point and it's deteriorated ? If so, it can be fixed up. They last resort is reinstalling Windows or another OS such as Linux to make it like it was when it was new. It might be all the accumulated junk over the years that windows likes to keep around. It's hard to

I can only restore to the factory settings (Loads of bloatware, which means not much improvement. I don't have a windows 7 disc, and I am informed we can no longer buy them!)

My desktop PC is plugged in as it doesn't have wi-fi.

I have used the laptop for remote surfing. (I can take it into my workshop for instance, without worrying about ethernet cables and the like.)

This 'not connected' problem is a recent development. It seems that I need to activate some program, but not being POP 3 and 'server savvy', I am stuck.

Sitting nearer the modem/server/router doesn't make any difference Paul. Stumped!
:mrgreen: :|

 

[mseries]

if you can try using cable it will help us determine if your problem is the wifi or not. This is just a test rather than a suggested solution.

If you have unneeded stuff that's running and slowing things down, which is likely on Windows, this will be removal, maybe not by me telling you on here, maybe not by you but someone with some knowledge will be able to do it.

 

[Benchwayze]

Thanks Mseries....

I just downloaded Chrome from the official page and installed. It wouldn't work initially, but it told me why it couldn't connect, and how to put the matter right. It was a simple matter of unchecking a box.

It seems the 'use proxy server for LAN' was checked. I unchecked it, and everything seems to be working as normal now. I hope I done and did the right thing! Chrome is certainly faster, but it's a bit non-intuitive to use, atm!

It has also solved the problem of being unable to install Open Office.
Now I can eventually uninstall MS Word, which is running up Windows installer as and when it pleases!

Thanks for all replies folks, Appreciated

John

 

[mseries]

You probably don't have a proxy server on your LAN ! Most people don't at home. LAN is Local Area Network and your home network (router/modem, PCs, laptops) is a LAN. The modem connects your LAN to the Wide Area Network (WAN) which is the phone lines and internet generally. A proxy server is a server through which all traffic passes and it can do things like firewalling, access restriction, blocking, caching. They are used in offices and other large networks. So if you told the browser to use one and didn't tell it which one it wouldn't know where to send your requests. You'd almost certainly know if you have one if this is your own network.

has this helped Firefox too ?

 

[Benchwayze]

You probably don't have a proxy server on your LAN ! Most people don't at home. LAN is Local Area Network and your home network (router/modem, PCs, laptops) is a LAN. The modem connects your LAN to the Wide Area Network (WAN) which is the phone lines and internet generally. A proxy server is a server through which all traffic passes and it can do things like firewalling, access restriction, blocking, caching. They are used in offices and other large networks. So if you told the browser to use one and didn't tell it which one it wouldn't know where to send your requests. You'd almost certainly know if you have one if this is your own network.

has this helped Firefox too ?

Well somehow the proxy server was ticked, and it appears this was causing the trouble. It's unticked now, so hopefully all will be well from now on. Firefox is still a bit slow, but until I can find out how to transfer my faves, it will have to stay.
Cheers

My thanks.

John

 

[mseries]

Do you want help transferring your favourites ? Should be loads of help on line, search for something like "export firefox bookmarks to chrome", the second and third results (when I did the search) look promising.

 

[worn thumbs]

I am using Firefox and it works well.Have you accumulated a vast array of cookies?They can slow things down and a surprising number come from almost any site you can think of,my record so far being 26 when using webmail.Some of them have expiry dates decades into the future and a few months of browsing can lead to thousands infesting your computer;they are not malicious but they do add to the background activity.At a minimum you might consider declining third party cookies and deleting those you can see no likely benefit from.

 

[Benchwayze]

Thanks for the info folks.

Transferring the bookmarks was just a two-click operation. Fini!

I don't know about cookies, but I think CC Cleaner sorts those out, and I have that set to operate each time I close the browser.
I will examine the problem though, and see if I can delete a few more.

Thanks again

Regards
John

 

[NickWelford]

What a shame - there goes the excuse to buy an apple laptop!

 

[DiscoStu]

If you've not specifically out proxy settings in and set them up then there is a good chance that you've got some malware or spyware on your PC.

IT COULD POTENTIALLY BE SERIOUS.

The normal use for a proxy would be for a network of computers and what a proxy does is keep a copy of something that one computer downloads (say the BBC news front page) if another PC (or even the same one) then requests the BBC front page later then rather than it having to be downloaded again it can be delivered directly from the proxy. Now if you've not set up proxy I would be concerned as proxy can be used maliciously. It can be used to effectively route your internet traffic through the proxy so that the person who owns the proxy can capture all of you incoming and outgoing traffic. Normally when used maliciously it done so that you are sent ads and spam etc. However all passwords etc can be captured like this. Now that I've made you panic let me give you some reassurance. When I say all I mean all http traffic (unencrypted web traffic) most secure sites banks, online payments etc will use https (encrypted) and therefore the proxy won't be capturing this information as it won't be able to understand it.

I would suggest running CCleaner or Ad Aware or both. I think both are free for home users. I suspect they will find a lot of junk on your machine. Get rid of all of it and you'll find things improve.

 

[Benchwayze]

What a shame - there goes the excuse to buy an apple laptop!

:lol: :lol: :lol: =D>

And thanks to DiscoStu. (I have had CC for a couple of years though. I also have Malwarebytes, which seems to find lots of little bugs.
Cheers

John

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

John...you should (probably do this already) always do a full system scan with up to date virus software at least once per week. You might need to leave it 3 hours or more for this to run to complete. I tend to do mine just before bed and tick the box that says shut down when complete. In the morning I check the virus volt and its quarantined anything it found from the scan.

Over Xmas I also reset to factory defaults 3 different PC's. Two Vista and one Windows 8 and they all function a zillion times better for it. I also remove all the bloatware from the startup directory. In fact a factory reset is nothing like as tricky as most people assume it will be. Its a doddle in fact, with vista and win 7 and most win 8 machines the operating system files are on a partition on the disc so you don't need any separate discs as long as your PC is capable of booting off the drive.

To do this, just google it and print the step by step instructions...it really isn't difficult. You will need to update windows to its current service pack once done and all told that takes a good 24 hours of guffing around having it update/restart etc. But I just have it in the background and manually intervene each time it wants to restart.

I recommend this procedure to all....it basically makes a new man out of your knackered PC since it formats the hard drive before reloading the operating system. No virus or malware can survive that. No substitute for more RAM etc but it does make a big difference to general performance and disc space. Obviously backup any data you need BEFORE you do this

 

[Benchwayze]

I've been doing this of course Bob. As for the bloatware, this is where the recent troubles began. I got a list of stuff I could remove safely. Problem was, it advised removing the recovery-reset system that came with the PC. I didn't notice this, and removed the 'recovery' set-up. I downloaded it from Toshiba since, but at the moment I have shied away from doing a full reboot. (Malwarebytes has just this minute finished a scan, ando now I will do the AV.scan!
Cheers.

John

 

[Random Orbital Bob]