How to Increase Internet Speed

Whether you are at home or at work, having a fast and efficient Internet connection is a vital component of your daily life. Slow speeds and weak connections can be frustrating and even costly. As more Internet-ready devices make their way into our homes and workplaces, keeping your web speed up is more important than ever. See Step 1 below to increase Internet speed and maximize the performance of your web-connected devices.

Part 1 of 3: Checking Your Hardware and Service

1
Run a speed test. There are a lot of free tools available online that will test your internet speed for you. Search for “speed test” on your favorite search engine and run tests through several different services. You may need to install plugins in order to get the tests to run.
- Different tests will give you different results, even if you take the same test twice. This is because test servers are located in different areas and the number of people online can affect your speed. It is best to take a good sample of tests to see what your average is.
2
Compare your speed results against what you’re paying for. Check your service plan to see what speed you are paying for. Many service providers will claim speeds “up to” a certain number. This means that they can’t guarantee that it will always be that high.
- If you are consistently receiving lower speeds than you are paying for, contact customer service and demand either a lower fee or speeds that match what you pay.
- If you haven’t upgraded your internet in a long time, you may be able to find faster internet for lower prices. Check all of the providers in your area.
- Don't fall for the megabit/megabyte trap. ISPs advertise in megabits, not megabytes. There are 8 megabits (Mb) in a megabyte (MB), so if you are paying for 25 megabits per second (Mbps), then that's just over 3 megabytes per second (MBps) of actual transfer speed.
3

Turn your modem off and on. Sometimes a simple reset can significantly increase your Internet speed. You can also turn your router on and off to see if that's helpful. Just make sure that you know your login information in case your computer requires you to enter it after the reset.
4
Change your Wi-Fi channel. If many people in your building are using the same channel, then you could notice a major slowdown in your Internet speed. Use a program such as inSSIDer for PC and KisMAC or WiFi Scanner for Mac to scan for channels that aren’t as populated. Switching to one of these channels will reduce interference and possibly increase your speed.^[1]
- If you see a more open channel, then switch channels to increase Internet speed. You'll need to consult your router’s documentation or look up the support site for your individual router to find out how to do access the router and change the wireless channel.
5
Move your wireless router or computer. If you are connected to the internet via a Wi-Fi router, poor signal can lead to lower speeds and dropped connections. If you can, move your router closer to your computer to boost your signal, or move the computer closer to the router.^[2]
- If the router is old, it may be time to upgrade. Newer routers can offer much improved connections and speed over older wireless routers.^[3]
- Dirty, dusty, or loose cables leading from your cable or DSL modem to your wireless router, or computer can cause significant reductions in your internet speed. Pick up a can of compressed air from your local computer store, and use it to blow out the dirt and dust in the connectors.
- Maintain proper ventilation around all electrical components to avoid overheating.
6

Try to use Ethernet instead of Wi-Fi. If you can, try to hardwire as many of your connected devices as possible. This will lead to higher speeds for those devices, as well as less interference for your remaining wireless devices, such as tablets and phones.
7

Secure your network. If your wireless network doesn’t have a password, not only are you leaving yourself vulnerable to others spying on you, but you are also leaving your network open for anyone to use. This means that other people can be stealing your bandwidth. Make sure that your wireless network is properly secured, especially in crowded apartments.
8

Check your filters if you have DSL. When you activated DSL, you hooked the line from your phone jack into one side of a rectangular box filter. On the other side, you have 2 lines coming out, 1 for your phone and 1 for your modem. If you are using a DSL connection over your landline, make sure that you have high-quality filters in place to get optimum signal speed.
9

Avoid running multiple devices at once. Turn off smartphones, tablets, Smart TVs, set-top boxes or other devices that you aren't currently using. If multiple devices are attempting to retrieve information from the internet, especially streaming video or gaming, you will see a loss of speed.
10

Check your data cap. Many internet service providers impose a data cap on their customers that may not be immediately visible. Log in to your account page, or contact the customer service department to see if you have gone over your allowance. Oftentimes the penalty for exceeding the allowance is decreased speed for the rest of the billing period.

Part 2 of 3: Cleaning Up Your Browser and Operating System

1
Run a virus and malware scan. Viruses, adware, and other malware can significantly slow down your internet speed, as well as your computer’s speed. Run regular scans to ensure that your computer is virus and malware free.
- If you don’t have an antivirus installed, install one immediately and make sure that it stays updated.
- Antivirus programs don’t always catch everything, so you should occasionallyrun scans with programs such as Spybot or Malwarebytes to find and remove stubborn malware.
2
Clear your browser’s cache. As you surf the web, your browser stores information about the sites you visit to make the loading process quicker when you next visit. Over time, however, this can actually reduce the speed of your browser as more and more information is stored. Occasionally clearing your cache can help boost the performance of a slow browser.
- Follow this guide to clear the cash of virtually any browser or device.
3
Remove the toolbars from your browser. If you’ve ended up with a lot of toolbars after years of using the same browser, it may be time to remove some (or all) of them. Toolbars will decrease your browser’s performance, and often take up your bandwidth by requesting ads and information.
- Follow this guide to remove toolbars from any of the major browsers.
4
Update your browser. Browsers are under constant development, and newer versions often offer performance increases over previous versions. Check to make sure you are running the latest version of your browser, and update it if you aren’t.
5

Change your web browser. If you’ve installed a bunch of toolbars and plugins for your web browser, it may be easier to just switch to a new browser instead of trying to remove all of them. Some browsers are natively faster than others as well, so you may see a performance increase regardless.^[4]
6

Clean up your hard drive. If your computer is running slowly, it can negatively impact your browsing experience, making it seem like your connection is slower than it is. Follow the steps in [Clean-up-a-Slow-Performing-Computer|this guide to clean out the old gunk from your hard drive]].
7

Shut down your computer regularly. To prevent future infections or slowdowns, take the time to shut down your computer every day. Turn on automatic security updates for all of your programs.^[5]
8
Uninstall bandwidth hogs. There may be programs installed that are using your bandwidth that you may not be aware of. Browse your installed programs and remove any that you know longer use or don’t remember installing. Be cautious when deleting programs you aren’t familiar with; always check online to see if it is a critical program.
- Uninstall programs in Windows.
- Uninstall programs in Mac OS X.

1

Open Run by pressing (Windows logo key + R).Then, type gpedit.msc in the Run window. Hit enter. A new window should open.
2

Select Administrative Templates. Then, select "Network" under "Administrative Templates."
3

Select and double click "QoS Packet Scheduler." You will find it on the right hand side of your screen.
4

Select and double click "Limit Reservable Bandwidth." If you're using default settings, you'll see that the settings are "Not Configured." However, even though the bandwidth limit below shows zero percent and is grayed, Windows 7 still reserves 20 percent of the current bandwidth available.
5

Click "Enable." Drag the bandwidth percent to zero percent and then click "Apply." When prompted, click "Okay."
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6

Run Disk Cleanup and restart your browser. Your Computer will now utilize 100 percent of the total bandwidth available. You should notice a slight increase in download speed.