Pale Moon and Broadband Speed?.

[saltyseadog]

I have been using Firefox for a while with Pale Moon as a back up browser mainly because of add-on availability issues. I have a 500Mbps broadband package with Virgin here in the UK and the last few days my Speed Test results have been down a lot. Without a VPN running I used to get between 380-500Mbps depending on time of day etc and with my VPN running would get between 180-280Mbps again dependent on time of day, server etc. Recently this had fallen to on average less than 400 without VPN and 150 with VPN. As a test I decided to try some speed tests with Pale Moon instead of Firefox and immediately and consistently was getting the full bandwidth without the VPN and approx the half with the VPN which is what it should be. Needless to say Pale Moon is now again my default browser, but does anyone have any idea why I should get better speed test results between Pale Moon and Firefox?.. Both have the latest updates and Windows 10 is updated to the latest version as well. Only difference is add-ons, could it be an add-on issue?.

[Pentium4User]

Please first try a fresh profile, these speed test sites might also do nasty things, including scripts e.g.
To test you bandwidth I recommend downloading a static file from an HTTP or FTP server via Pale Moon.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Maybe the results are skewed cause the site you are testing from has become a javascript abomination. Try instead to download test files from server hosts or similar testing sites that are unrestricted and not bound to jsbs like https://www.thinkbroadband.com/download

32 MB/s = 256 Mbit/s

Of course no normal SINGLE server will ever let you download at that speed. High Speed Internet to a point becomes more useful for its broadband capabilities where there are multiple speed-restricted servers being able to transfer data simultaneously than just one connection being super fast. This was the concept behind some of those download programs that make several separate connections to a site and each download a portion of the file and then merge the parts at the end. Of course, these days many sites and services restrict the number of connections you can make at any one time..

Add that a server would likely be capped at the amount of bandwidth given on a single connection and you will find in practice your home connections are faster than they really need to be given served content AND in some cases are faster than your system's IO can even accommodate particularly on ancient systems a portion of our userbase likes to continue to use.

[BenFenner]

These two replies make me thing the OP has been misunderstood.
Just to be clear, they are saying Pale Moon is faster than Firefox in their speed tests right now.
Carry on.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

There are so many factors that could be at play including the ones I cited. Even so whatever (mis)interpretation of the OP doesn't invalidate anything I said.

Of course, I am not using an old and insecure Pentium 4.

[saltyseadog]

BennFenner is right, I was just wondering if there could be a reason why using the latest Firefox and the latest Edge i get on average 25-40Mbps less on Speed Test.net than I do with Pale Moon. To add this is a recent "problem" as up until two weeks or so ago I had no problems with my download speed with either Firefox or Edge and found out that Pale Moon was getting a better speed while investigating this. My PC is modern, kept up to date with drivers, programs etc is regularly scanned with AV, Superantispyware and Privazer. I personally think the problem started with a recent Windows update which put the new Chrome based Edge onto my PC without so much as a by your leave. Anyway I thought perhaps the answer might lay in the browser codes?.

[Moonchild]

There are many factors at play here. It wouldn't at all surprise me if the multi-process architecture employed by Chrome and Firefox is actually detrimental for measured throughput. Every millisecond that one process has to wait for another will add up when you are pumping a lot of data through something. Just as an example of one of the things that would make sense if indeed the case (but I have no way of telling without extensive research).

I don't think any particular windows update would influence this; not deliberately anyway. Chredge is still just a regular program that won't directly interfere with the internals of other browsers.

[Moonbird]

Maybe the other browsers "steal" your bandwidth for their telemetry!

[Moonchild]

Maybe the other browsers "steal" your bandwidth for their telemetry!

50Mbit worth of it? C'mon man use your bird brain.