Factors that influence Download Speed on the Internet

Don't we all cringe ... and swiftly click away ... from websites that take forever to show up on our monitors! The World-Wide-Wait is often caused by inexperienced web designers who construct websites in various manners that make the site take forever to download. A well-designed site will avoid the pitfalls of slow downloads.

The speed at which websites download from the Internet is dependent on the following factors:

Web design

• Design of the web page - number of graphics and their size, use of frames and tables *
• Size of the web page - overall length of page. *

Your browsing history

• Whether or not you have ever accessed the site before. If you have accessed it recently, the files may be in your cache and the site will load more quickly the second and subsequent times.
• How full your disk cache is - you may need to clear your disk cache if you've set it to only reserve a small amount of space.

Your computer configuration and settings

• How much memory you have in your computer - the more RAM the better.
• The size of your network buffer - most overlooked setting.
• The size of your swap file.
• How fragmented the data on your hard drive is - you may need to run a defrag program.
• The number of programs you have running simultaneously while downloading. Running multiple programs hogs valuable RAM space.
• Cookies - it may speed up your download if you clear your cookie files or alternately turn off cookie notification.

The network used to access the site

• Speed of your connection to the Internet - your modem/cable/DSL/wireless speed.
• Quality of your telephone/broadband line - bad connections mean slower transmissions.
• Access speed on the server where the site is hosted - if the site is hosted on a busy server, it may slow down access speed.
• How much traffic there is to the site at the same time you are trying to access it.
• The load on the overall network at your ISP - how busy it is.

Any or all of the above can slow download time. Web designers only have control over the first two items, which are marked with an asterisk!

Settings on your computer:

Browser settings – set your memory cache to 3000 KB and the Disk cache set to 5000 KB - minimum (note: my memory cache is set at 10 MB and my disk cache at 15 MB!). These settings can be changed in your browser preferences.

When you have more than 16 MB of RAM, from the default setting of 1024 KB, set your network buffer to 64 KB and simultaneous connections to 4. Also check with your ISP to confirm that your proxies are set correctly.

If you make these adjustments in your settings, you should see a significant improvement in your surfing speed.

If you are still having serious problems with access/download speed to the Internet, it may be time to change your ISP, back up your data files and get your hard disk reformatted, and load updated versions of software on your computer.

If you are unhappy with the download speed of your current website, or would like to develop a new website that avoids the slow download pitfalls, contact the design team at Yakindo Web Designs.