FIOS browser issues
iceman_k1
Newbie

Hi all,

I am a new FIOS subscriber, just got it installed a week ago.

In general I am happy with the speeds. However, I have noticed a troubling issue while browsing the web.

Google Chrome is my primary browser and quite often while loading a web page, I get the slow counter-clockwise spinner with the message "Waiting for " message in the status bar. Once the connection is made, the page downloads almost instantly, but I

I don't know why it has trouble connecting to the page at all.

Sometimes, if I click the cancel button and reload the page, it goes through immediately, other times it again gets stuck waiting for the website.

I did not see this problem when I had DSL, though the page downloads were far slower.

I have changed my DNS. I used the GRC DNS benchmarker to determine that 141.154.0.68 and 151.203.0.84 were the best DNS for my location.

However, it does not seem to have made much difference.

I have verified that there is no proxy server setup for my internet connections.

I am looking for any suggestions as to what else I can try. 

I considering shutting down my local firewall (and relying on the Actontec firewall) and seeing if that helps.

---

Thanks in advance.

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Re: FIOS browser issues
jmw1950
Specialist - Level 2

Two points. On DNS's, I (and many others) use OpenDNS. It seems to be much more reliable than Verizon's DNS service.

Obviously if name resolution is slow, so will the loading of the web sites. Even the Verizon people who show up in these forums have admitted Verizon's DNS service is  sometimes less than wonderful. I have been using Open DNS for 2+ years, and have seen very few DNS related issues (when I was a Cable Internet Customer, a day didn't go by when I didn't see a DNS problem).

The other thing you probably should try is a tracert to the web site when it seems to be loading slowly. This will identify any nodes along the way that may be delaying your traffic. These days network congestion upstream is a frequent issue.

 In general with FiOS, whatever speed Verizon says you have, is what you will get. FiOS is not sensitive to weather, or much of anything.


Having said that, FiOS is only entry/exit ramp to the Internet. Verizon has no control over capacity and priorities once your traffic leaves the Verizon network.

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Re: FIOS browser issues
Hubrisnxs
Legend

Are you wired or wireless?

and does this happen on a wired machine, or can you test it like that?     It might be a simple fix like changing the wifi channel.   I use the VZ DNS servers, and from my experience they are faster than the open DNS servers and the Google DNS servers.   The open dns is neat because it gives you content management for free, but I definetely don't think its faster.     But you can always benchmark the servers and find out at www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm.

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Re: FIOS browser issues
Justin46
Legend

@Hubrisnxs wrote:

Are you wired or wireless?

and does this happen on a wired machine, or can you test it like that?     It might be a simple fix like changing the wifi channel.   I use the VZ DNS servers, and from my experience they are faster than the open DNS servers and the Google DNS servers.   The open dns is neat because it gives you content management for free, but I definetely don't think its faster.     But you can always benchmark the servers and find out at www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm.


I agree about wireless. Wireless is never a performance option, and there are lots of sources of interference. If your issue is when using wireless, I recommend trying channels, 1, 6, and 11 to see which works best. For me, 1 is the best.

I am located in the DFW area, OpenDNS has servers located here, as does Verizon. I cannot see much difference in performance one way or the other. But I switched several years ago to OpenDNS because at least for a while Verizon's DNS was very unreliable, plus they were behind OpenDNS in updating their servers against various phishing activities. Since switching I have not had a single DNS issue that I am aware of, plus I do make some use of the content management.

It can't hurt to try any of a number of DNS services to see which works best for you. You never know, might help.

__________________________________
Justin
FiOS TV, 25/25 Internet, and Digital Voice user
QIP7232, QIP7100-P2, IMG 1.9
Keller, TX 76248

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Re: FIOS browser issues
pa28pilot
Enthusiast - Level 3

DNS resolution can definitely make a difference in fetch times. You might also want to try Google DNS at 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4. OpenDNS is another useful option, but sometimes they issue multiple conflicting answers if you watch that sort of thing. My only guess is that it's related to their user-configurable filtering service, which allows you to block resolution for names pointing to various classes of content. 

I'm a bit of a DNS stickler, so that puts me off. The latency with Google's DNS has its own issues, but they keep a big cache, which can make a difference. 

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Re: FIOS browser issues
iceman_k1
Newbie

Thanks for all the replies.

To answer a couple of the questions:

1) This is a wired connection, connected directly to the FIOS router.

2) I did benchmark the DNS servers and chose the two that the benchmark recommended as the best for my location.

I will try Google DNS as well as OpenDNS to see if either of them help.

Thanks again to everyone. I am impressed with the promptness of responses in this forum.

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Re: FIOS browser issues
Irving_TX
Enthusiast - Level 2

I'm in the Dallas area and have a wired connection.  I use Chrome and IE.  About 2 or 3 weeks ago I started noticing long delays when I launch my browser.  Yahoo is my home page.  The delays to get to Yahoo ranged from 2 - 15 secs.  I also got "waiting for response" delays at other times.  After reading this thread, I set my IPv4 DNS to OpenDNS.  So far, Yahoo pops up almost instantaneously; like it used to using Verizon's DNS.

I didn't change the IPV6 DNS setting because I didn't know what IP address to use.

I want to thank everybody for this thread.  

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