Why do web pages load so slowly?

If the answer is "just some of them," the pages you are trying to load maysimply be popular pages on overloaded servers. There is not much you cando to speed up a slow website you don't run, although customers ofcertain ISPs such as America Online andEarthlink benefit from automaticcaching of popular pages that makes popular content available tocustomers more quickly. See how fast ismy website? for more information about the speed limitations ofof websites.

Of course, some pages are slow because of their content. A page madeup of text will be faster to load than a site made up of largephotographs. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it takesmuch longer to transmit! Full motion video really requires a broadbandconnection for adequate performance.

If the answer is "all web pages," you probably have a slow connectionto the Internet. 56k dialup modems are slow. Most "broadband"connections, such as DSL and cable modem, are roughly 26 times as fast as a56k modem at its theoretical best. 56k is shorthand for roughly56,000 bits per second, or roughly 7,000 characters per second.And in practice, "56k" modems almost never run at this maximum speed. TheFCC limits the top speed to 53,000 bits per second in the United States,and the actual connection speed depends on your distance from your telephonecompany's central office, your type ofphone wiring and the presence or absence of equipment belonging to yourISP in the same telephone company central office. In many cases, when youdial out to your ISP, there is a "details" or "more" button you can clickto see at what speed the connection was actually made. If the connectionspeed is much slower than 36,000 bits per second, it may be worth askingthe phone company to test your phone line for noise. Most phone companiesdo not promise modem connection speeds above just 9,600 bits per second, butthat is something of a worst-case scenario and most connections are not thatbad.

The good news is that most professionally designed websites, such asCNN orSlashdot, are designed to load fasteven on 56k modems. Good webmasters accomplish this by limiting the useof large images, choosing the right image formats for the right jobsand avoiding the use of video and audio unless the user explicitly asks for it.Popular sites such as these are even more likely to load quickly if you usean ISP that offers caching, such asEarthlink orAOL.

While various "web accelerator," "internet accelerator," and"browser accelerator" programs exist, some do not work, mostprovide only very small benefits, and some carry spywareand adware programs that can potentially harm your computer's performancein serious ways. The best of these tools use "precaching" strategies,fetching web pages you frequently visit as well as pages that are linkedto by the page you are currently reading, so that when you actually followa link the page is already on your computer. "Registry tweaks" and othertricks may offer very minor perceived improvements, at some risk of causingproblems for your computer. And "download managers" can automaticallyretry downloads of large files and, in some cases, even intentionallydownload them using only half of your modem's capacity so that you canstill use your browser effectively. But nothing alters the fact that yourdialup modem is a slow device.

The NetSonic browser acceleratorsoftware is currently available in a useful free edition and hasreceived good reviews. The GetRightdownload manager has also received excellent reviews, and a freeevaluation version is available.

I also suggest reviewing theBroadband Reports website for usefulcomparative information about DSL and cable modem providers in your area aswell as other possible broadband high-speed options.