The Internet is a necessity in the workplace, whether you work in a supermarket or in an office, there is a part of your job that will require an Internet connection. With companies becoming increasingly obsessed with ways to increase productivity, the most obvious way is to improve your connection speed.
If you count up the times you have waited for a page to load or a tutorial video to stop buffering, you’ll probably have spent hours if not days each year sat at your screen simply waiting.
In the following paragraphs we’ll cover what contributes to Internet speed and share some top tips on how you can speed yours up.
Internet speed is determined by a number of factors; some are completely out of your control, like where you live whilst others you do have control over.
Network structure
Perhaps the most important thing is the structure of your network. Whether you use a wired or wireless connection, if your system isn’t installed with bandwidth in mind you could be losing mountains of all-important speed. As a result, it is imperative that your business hires a structured cabling and wireless network professional to ensure that your network is in the best position possible to help you reach maximum Internet speed.
Clean your device
Have you ever wondered why the Internet on your laptop seems to move much quicker than on your PC, despite you being connected to the same network? Well a lot of this can be to do with your device rather than the network.
If you are trying to use multiple applications at once or your device is reaching its memory capacity, it will run much slower. As a knock on effect this means it will take longer for web pages to load.
Spend a few hours going through your computer and remove any unwanted applications. Don’t forget to perform regular virus scans as well because if your computer is infected it could make your Internet run at a snail-like pace. Here are a few more tips on how to clean your computer.
Check your browser
This is something that many people forget, but different browsers will have more of a strain on your computer and connection. For example, Internet Explorer is a popular browser but it does use a lot of resources, on the other hand you could find that using a more compact browser like Chrome will speed up your connection.
Download browser plug-ins
Most browsers now come with the ability to download plug-ins like dictionaries that allow you to hover over a word and instantly be presented with a definition.
There are many fantastic plug-ins that can help to improve your Internet speed. Popular ones include those which virtually disable ads from your surfing experience and with less flashing banners and pop-ups on your screen, you will have less elements to load and ultimately the content that matters should load much more quickly.
Most browsers now come with this ability built-in, like Safari will automatically disable all Flash elements unless you physically click on it and enable Flash.
Remove unwanted plug-ins
There are countless plug-ins that you can download so you’ll be forgiven for amassing a few over time. However, if you have plug-ins that you haven’t used in months, delete them. They’ll be running in the background and consuming bandwidth unnecessarily.
Close all unneeded tabs
Many webpages will now refresh automatically every few minutes, mainly news sites. So even if you aren’t looking at pages but have them open in tabs, they will be consuming bandwidth. If you are one of these people that likes to have unlimited tabs and browser windows open, think again if you are experiencing slow Internet speeds – closing them could have a huge difference.
