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howto.wired.com — Your broadband connection screams compared with the dial-up days of yore, but it could be faster. These days, your internet connection can't be fast enough. That is why we're here — to show you the way to a faster internet connection by tweaking the hardware and software you're using.

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 15, 2008

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  • Bogo, on 10/14/2008, -2/+72These suggestions either require you to lose a lot of functionality or shut off your firewall/virus scanners, with very minor benefits if you're on broadband.

    Granted, most diggers are intelligent people, but anyone that has enough experience to risk barebacking the internet (even with a router firewall) wouldn't need these tips.
  • Phoenixheart, on 10/15/2008, -2/+57Not to be offensive, but these tips won't save you more than 5kBps.
  • NinjaNato, on 10/15/2008, -0/+47dugg for "barebacking the Internet"
  • fuzzmeister, on 10/15/2008, -2/+40Strikes me as somewhat odd that an ad-driven site would recommend AdBlock.
  • dcpar, on 10/15/2008, -9/+42I have a problem with my computer. Whenever I hit a certain key, time reverses d
    d sesrever emit ,yek niatrec a tih I revenehW .retupmoc ym htiw melborp a evah I
  • Jacksteruk309, on 10/15/2008, -0/+33They really recommend people should disable Javascript? And they recommend people should turn off their Firewall and Antivirus!?

    :-/
  • ileftfark, on 10/15/2008, -1/+31Wow... many of these amount to the old dial-up trick of "speed boosting", where it strips down content or doesn't render images fully (or at all) in order to load a page faster. I was hoping for some router/modem hacks.
  • jakem1, on 10/15/2008, -0/+28Blocked and reported.
  • SSPink, on 10/15/2008, -0/+22I am deeply offended and you, sir, should be ashamed of yourself.
  • scooterbaga, on 10/15/2008, -1/+22You bastard!
  • Memnochxx, on 10/15/2008, -1/+17Disable javascript, firewall, and antivirus. ***** stupid.
  • infinityredux, on 10/15/2008, -0/+13¡qǝʍ ǝɥʇ ǝsʍoɹq oʇ buılıǝɔ ǝɥʇ ɯoɹɟ uʍop ǝpısdn buɐɥ oʇ ǝʌɐɥ ʇ,uop noʎ ʇsɐǝ1 ʇɐ ʎǝɥ
  • tama00, on 10/15/2008, -2/+14Im disappointed this article hit the front page. Its full of crap tips, anyone who thinks this is useful should be shot on site.
  • danthepiercer, on 10/15/2008, -1/+12How Dare You?!
  • arunforce, on 10/15/2008, -0/+10Mother *****, how many times did I tell you not to divide by zero?
  • doctechnical, on 10/15/2008, -0/+10I've got an old 160GB hard drive laying around... I think I'll throw it in my system and dedicate the entire drive to be my browser cache. That should make the nets fly!
  • offrdbandit, on 10/15/2008, -0/+9I just download the Internet from a torrent to make my Internet faster. Seems to work pretty well. I've downloaded the Internet on both of my computers and haven't had a problem yet...
  • lulzitsadigg, on 10/15/2008, -0/+9OpenDNS = WIN. Especially for us Charter users who get redirected to their ***** ad-ridden page on a bad DNS lookup. To be fair, OpenDNS has that too, but it can be turned off and I'm not already paying them $60 a month.
  • netneutrality, on 10/15/2008, -0/+9That was useless. How much time does your browser spend sending DNS requests? 0.1 seconds per new domain name accessed each day maybe? It'll take longer to set it up than it would ever save.
  • Ramble, on 10/15/2008, -0/+8You have a 10GHz processor?
  • killtrocity, on 10/15/2008, -0/+8!!niaga ti sserP !tihs hhhoooO
  • randall82, on 10/15/2008, -0/+8news flash - want fast service? buy a faster plan. You've got a 100Mbps router and 10 billion clock cycles a second trying render a few pictures and some text, maybe a flash video if you're getting fancy. The slowdown's not on your end...
  • rossnyc, on 10/15/2008, -4/+11Just switched my routers DNS servers to Open DNS. Seems to be faster.

    (Calm down Digg nerds)
  • SanTe, on 10/15/2008, -0/+7View your own digg profile and under "Recent Activity" find the digg article in question. On the right side of the article column is an orange "undigg" button. (I did the same thing and regretted it as well.)
  • lazarus2405, on 10/15/2008, -0/+7"Just switched my routers DNS servers to Open DNS. Seems to be faster.

    (Calm down Digg nerds)"

    Placebo effect. I promise you that there is no discernible advantage to using DNS servers that (while they may or may not be better maintained than your ISP's) are certainly geographically further away than your ISP's.

    Oh, and the article is not worthy of being on Digg's first page. "Use a router"? Chances are you have been for years! "Turn media off"? Because the web in 2008 is all about the text. "Turn off virus protection and firewalls"? Now that one scares me. Big time. Granted, they do say to do so only "If you're 100% certain you can handle the evils of the internet single-handedly...", but those who fall into that category are the ones who need that protection the most.
  • Apocalyptic0n3, on 10/15/2008, -0/+6But how do you survive the tortures of internet at a university somewhere in mid Michigan?
  • doctechnical, on 10/15/2008, -0/+6I wonder if they put that in there just to see if anyone was paying attention. It's right up there with "surround your furnace wilth piles of oily rags in order to increase it's efficiency".
  • inactive, on 10/15/2008, -0/+5Shame it didn't mention QOS.
  • DannyDriffs, on 10/15/2008, -0/+5DSL is so slow!
  • fknrat, on 10/15/2008, -0/+5Good lord. they recommend turning off AV and firewalls.
  • danwallace, on 10/15/2008, -2/+7Anyone who says "lolz," even facetiously, gets auto-buried by me.
  • LeviTheSmith, on 10/15/2008, -4/+8I don't have to do what you say
  • Nouman6, on 10/15/2008, -0/+4switch to firefox?
  • IFEice, on 10/15/2008, -4/+8I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU
  • haxcorner, on 10/15/2008, -2/+6How do you 'undigg' an article? I dugg this to take a look at it later... but decided to read it now - not helpful.
  • doctechnical, on 10/15/2008, -0/+4Yeah guys, he's right! We've had enough of this! Let's GET Vista! GET IT! GET IT NOW BEFORE IT GETS AWAY! AAAAAIIIIEEE!!!!
  • nydwarf, on 10/16/2008, -0/+3This doesn't make your connection faster just your applications.
  • MavRevMatt, on 10/15/2008, -0/+3It's a wiki though, at least it shows that shows that Wired has some integrity when it comes to not censoring.
  • billbugger, on 10/15/2008, -1/+4Switched it back for ya
  • doctechnical, on 10/15/2008, -0/+3Road Runner does the same bloody thing. If I ping a domain that doesn't f'ing exist I don't want the pings returned, dammit!
    I'm seriously considering switching for that feature alone.
  • Fatcheeseguy, on 10/15/2008, -0/+3I have AT&T high speed internet and with "Up to 3.0 Mbps download speed and up to 512 Kbps upload speed". My router is a linksys wrk54g, and I am connected via cat5 cable. However when I download a file simple file online I get around 200 kbps using firefox's DTA. Is my router just ***** or is AT&T's fault?
  • genaropfr, on 10/15/2008, -1/+4Firewalls are for pussies! I've never installed a 3rd party firewall on my computer and I always disable Windows' firewall, so far I haven't had a problem. My linksys router is more than enough.
  • SanTe, on 10/15/2008, -0/+3...and disable IPv6 support.

    Go to about:config
    Type "ipv6" in the filter field
    Double click "network.dns.disableIPv6" to flip from false to true
    Restart Firefox

    This will prevent Firefox from wasting time attempting IPv6 lookups and timing out before repeating with IPv4. Unlike the tips from the article, this will actually speed up your browsing.
  • aelias, on 10/15/2008, -0/+3It's the server feeding the data. Download from a screaming source and you'll see double that speed. Try torrents with a bunch of seeds if you want to see how fast your connection can get.
  • haxcorner, on 10/16/2008, -0/+3Thanks.
  • FreeTalkLIve, on 10/16/2008, -0/+2There are real "hacks" to increase bandwidth and speed. I am sure some of you know of this, but there is no way in hell I would release that information on DIGG.

  • aelias, on 10/15/2008, -0/+2Me too. My router is pretty much all I need when it's coupled with not clicking on every shiny object on the web.
  • commentbot, on 10/16/2008, -0/+2Of course if you disable Flash, Java, Javascript, and images, the page is gonna load faster, but then, what's left?! Barely content...
  • 8fans, on 10/16/2008, -0/+2Sometimes it's nice to know who's phoning home.
  • commentbot, on 10/16/2008, -0/+2Ah ah!! Then I'll be happy because with my connection, I download at 2.5kBps.
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