Ways to reduce Internet lag?

[Dirkoir]

This is a combined Internet / Mint tricks question, I think.

My current ISP (Comcast) is often very laggy and seems to drop a lot of packages in one of it's nodes several hops away before traffic moves on other systems outside its empire.

Maybe a proxy somewhere could lead around the bottleneck?

In my case, 100% packet loss (if traceroute still means anything in the days of IPv6 coming on the scene) seems to often occur between 23.30.207.94 and the world.

Perhaps a public DNS might also help. (I have added 2 "Additional DNS Servers" in Network Connections > IPv4 Settings, but saw no improvement)

Sometimes, I can get back into the game by disconnecting and reconnecting from my WiFi connection, which may be an unrelated overlying issue, though.

I'm using LM17 Cinnamon.

[Mute Ant]

The Opera browser is easy to install; it has a Slow-Connection switch to send traffic through the Opera computers when it detects less-than-perfect response time.

[Dirkoir]

Thanks , but I am definitely not only talking about web browsing.

[Pierre]

if you are with Comcast,
then try using Open Dns:

http://www.opendns.com/home-internet-se ... addresses/

if that works, then open a account < free > in order to customise how it works.

[Spearmint2]

change the DNS in your router/modem and not just on the operating system.

[Dirkoir]

change the DNS in your router/modem and not just on the operating system.

Thanks. Sadly, the router is my landlord's, not mine. They may not wish me to fiddle with it.

As for changing the DNS on the OS, how is that done? Network Connections only lets me specify "Additional DNS servers" -- and this only for IPv4 btw (if I add them for IPv6 the "Save" button becomes ghosted and it won't save). And /etc/resolv.conf reads:

Code: Select all

# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
#     DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver 127.0.1.1
search hsd1.va.comcast.net

Meaning: don't bother to edit this. It will be automatically overwritten by some process taking info from somewhere. *sigh*

BTW, what about proxies, VPNs, and such, btw?

[Spearmint2]

BTW, what about proxies, VPNs, and such, btw?

I wouldn't. You have to be sure of the proxy being safe and not a "middle man" info gathering scheme. A VPN helps if using a risky proxy server, but maybe not that much because they can still spoof either side of the connection with the right software. Is this a shared router?

Network Connections only lets me specify "Additional DNS servers"

ergo, the reason I said do it on the router.

Code: Select all

and this only for IPv4 btw (if I add them for IPv6 the "Save" button becomes ghosted and it won't save).

That's because IPv6 uses a different type of addressing scheme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#Addressing

Compared to IPv4, the most obvious advantage of IPv6 is its larger address space. IPv4 addresses are 32 bits long and number about 4.3×109 (4.3 billion).[37] IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long and number about 3.4×1038 (340 undecillion). IPv6's addresses are deemed enough for the foreseeable future.[38]

IPv6 addresses are written in eight groups of four hexadecimal digits separated by colons, such as 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334. IPv6 unicast addresses other than those that start with binary 000 are logically divided into two parts: a 64-bit (sub-)network prefix, and a 64-bit interface identifier

[dreamless]

Just write to Your ISP to change Yr DNS ( worked for me ) or ask for DMZ so You won`t be able to use 99% of Yr ISP "hops", just keep in mind that this will move You out of ISP LAN network, if this dropout ip is bridge router from ISP than nothing will help tho, You can check it from tracert/mtr soft.
In other hand i would send reklamation first, this looks like switch fault ( not yrs ofc ) so they should solve issue ( if its in ISP range ).
Getting public IP with own DNS would solve issue aswell, if You don`t have access to router/switch than changing dns on computer wont solve issue cuz Your packets will go same "way" in ISP netwerk as before. DNS or proxy will "hide" Your computer from wan network but not from lan.