How can I diagnose reason for intermittent slow website connecting

[Condobloke]

but like I said, in linux mint I do not have this problem. Its something in my Ubuntu installation.

Why do you dual boot Mint & Ubuntu ?...they are quite similar

Get rid of Ubuntu ?

 

[Rob]

Having incorrect dns can cause delays in some applications .. even just opening a terminal. What's currently in your /etc/resolv.conf file?

At the very least, it should have a line like this:
nameserver 127.0.0.53

Something may not be acting right in whatever ip you have there - replace it with this: `
nameserver 1.1.1.1

Then save it and try loading some things.

 

[jpnilson]

If you want to test DNS response try the following

time dig www.yahoo.com

replace yahoo with website of your choosing. Part of the output will give you query time.

 

[jpnilson]

You can also use curl to test website load time. Below is a link to a really cool script example

How to test website speeds with curl

Website speed reductions may be too small to view, but you know it happens. Here's how to get actionable details on website speed with curl.

www.techrepublic.com

Personally I'm old school. I would do a packet capture and eyeball out the number I need. Both of the things I have mentioned would break out all of the aspects of your network interaction with some remote server. Not sure what is happening in your case but good luck.

 

[sofasurfer]

Something may not be acting right in whatever ip you have there - replace it with this: `
nameserver 1.1.1.1

Then save it and try loading some things.

This had no effect. Thanks for trying

 

[sphen]

There are various DNS benchmark applications and tools that you can use to test DNS response speeds. I have used this free tool from Gibson Research for decades:

https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

NOTES:

• It runs on Windows, but they advertise compatibility with WINE for Mac and Linux.
• It is old and has not changed much over the years. I wonder whether better tools are now available. I use it so rarely that I never bothered to look.
• From my experience, some firewalls do not like it.
  • They may react to the flood of DNS queries and block or interfere with them or your system under test.
  • The issues are more common with business-class and enterprise-level firewalls.
  • That could be tool-dependent. Perhaps a different DNS testing tool may do better with a given firewall. I have only used the one from Gibson Research. The need is rare.

 

[sofasurfer]

Well, I thank everyone for their help but at the point I am feeling that this is beyond my abilities. I am going to take another approach. I am going to run a clone and then do a system reinstall while trying to reinstall some of the apps and see if they still open slow. Then I will just reinstall the system and see if it runs better. If so, I will just restore my home backup and everything should be ok. All I know is that this slow app startup issue wasn't always there.
I'll let you know.

 

[ML_113]

I connect my VPN to a different server.