Damian's Place

PC Help on Damiansplace.net

Does your browser need more and more time to open web pages? Perhaps it doesn't display them at all? Did browsing "The Net" became troublesome necessity, instead of being pleasure?

Your computer needs help, that browsing Internet again becomes pleasure. How? That's the right place. PC Help on Damian's Place is a set of basic advices on how to restore your system to the previous magnificence. PC Help on Damian's Place will explain to you in the possibly accessible way how to remove unnecessary browser cookies, how to get rid of temporary Internet files, as well as, what to do, to make your browser display web sites again.

On this page we'll focus on streamlining action of popular web browsers, meaning Internet Explorer® and Mozilla Firefox®, which work under control of most popular, at this moment, operating systems, Windows XP® and Windows 2000®. On purpose I won't do anything with older Microsoft™ systems, as they're less popular and bring higher risk of breaking them down, while we'll try to fix them. So if you have problem with viewing web pages on one of the older MS systems, please contact vendor support or Microsoft™ support, as they will be able to solve your problem.

So lets begin. First we'll try to restore your browser recent speed, then let us see, what can be done, that it will display web pages again. For the very end let us see, what is “slowing” Your Internet connection.

Let's go

Cookies and Temporary Internet Files

Cookies and Temporary Internet Files are used to, appropriately, personalize and speed up loading of websites, that you'd like to see. That's theory. Cookies, are small files containing information about you and your last visit to specified web site, if somebody will build them in wrong way or you'll get to much of them on your PC, they can become reason for your slowing down connection, but you shouldn't be afraid of them. When it goes about temps, it looks a bit different, because of their content, they're much bigger than cookies. You ask what is their content? Good question. Well, imagine my friend that they contain big files, which your browser needed to download. Why it's doing that? Now we reach source of our problem. It happens like that, to allow your browser open web pages, containing for e.g. lots of pictures, faster. Then why do I write about that on page, where you shall find only hints how to increase speed of your Internet? Believe me, they can behave in directly opposite way, as they will extend time that you're waiting for web page to open. Why? Again good question. When your typing in address for a website, your web browser will check if files for that site ain't stored in Temporary Internet Files on your hard drive and it will load them from that location. Hmmm... you say, that it will make time to open shorter, that's right, but not all the time. Think for a moment, what will happened if your browser will be about to show you most recent version of a website and content of those files doesn't match content of files stored on web server, because somebody who maintains that website, changed its content. In that case your browser stops to load files from your drive, without removing them, and starts to download new content. That means for you longer time to open specified site and you're convinced that your connection slowed down. When you visit lots of places on the Net, we have to add one more thing. Amount of those files. Please believe me, there are hundreds of them and browser has to find the correct one, that increases time needed to display page as well.
What to do with it? It's simple and works under every Windows®. If you're using Internet Explorer, in it's main window click on:

Tools -> Internet Options -> Delete Cookies (and Cookies are history)
or
Delete Files (and Temps are gone)

in Mozilla it looks as follows:

Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Cookies tab -> Delete Cookies
or
Cache tab -> Delete cache now

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How to restore websites display

If you're sure that nobody didn't change settings on your computer, but that web browser rebels again to show you content of a website, we can search for source of that problem practically in two places. If you are using good firewall, there is a possibility that it downloaded most recent updates that increased settings to protect your PC. To check if that happened usually it's enough to switch firewall off for a few moments and to load the same page again. If it won't work and you're sure that it's not our problem, source of it, most probably, will be corrupted files of TCP/IP protocol, which is in charge of exchange data over Internet. Symptoms of it are problems or total inability to open any website, as well as, trouble with sending and receiving your e-mail's. If on your computer you have any other than Windows®2000 or ®XP system in charge (check Info section, higher up to left of that page), problem can't be solved on other way, than by removing and reinstalling files of that protocol, what is quite compound operation and I won't try to describe it on this page in order to not contribute in damaging the system of your PC. If on that computer you have installed Windows®2000 or XP and it works in ANY network, before you try following hints it's absolutely necessary to contact your network administrator, as following commands will remove settings according to your PC's IP address in that network, as well as, details about address of computer which connects your machine to Internet (default gateway).
When you'll check that you won't remove any of above mentioned important details, you can reset (restore default settings) of that protocol. To do so, first we have to open Command Prompt. Click on:

Start -> Run -> In box type in: cmd -> and click OK

When you'll open it in Windows 2000® and in first edition of XP type in:

netsh interface ip reset reset.txt

If you didn't saw any error message, which would say that this command was unrecognised, close Command Prompt and reboot PC. After it will come back up check if we've reached our target. In case that you will see error message, and you're running Windows 2000® you'll have to contact your PC vendor support (in any way, typing that command in, won't make any harm to the system). Users of Windows XP® should enter second version of that command, as the error message means that they are running later version of that OS. So type in following into Command Prompt:

netsh int ip reset reset.txt

After doing so let us close "the DOS Prompt" and reboot your computer.
In extreme situations above steps may fail to reach our needs. In that case, our last way to resolve this problem, is to totally remove details concerning TCP/IP protocol. To do so, we have to open once more Command Prompt (how to � in first frame of this section) and let us type in:

netsh -> confirm by pressing Enter key -> dump

content of that window will change, when it stops on the bottom you'll see
netsh>
type in -> quit -> again confirm with Enter key

After executing above, close Command Prompt and reboot computer. That should convince your PC to display websites again.
In case that your PC won't react to such a "tortures", a contact with service centre will be essential as other elements of your PC system can be damaged and it can be necessary to reinstall system on your computer.

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"Computer vermin"

In the end let me briefly mention about the relation between "hosting" viruses and "spies" on your PC's hard drive, and speed of your Internet connection. All "computer vermin", need possibility to spread, to "live". If they can't move between computers, they become useless for their "creators", because their main target is to collect information about victims PC, to take over the control of it or to cause as big losses as possible to infected computer. While your computer is not properly protected (about how to do it you can read in Protect your PC), you're becoming, sorry for expression, easy target for viruses, spyware and crackers. Your computer connected to "The Net", can be used as "intermediary" to attack another computer in network (DoS or DDoS attack). Are you're still asking what influence does it have on the speed of your connection? The reply can be only one, fundamental. Using your Internet connection, all computer microbes, are communicating with their owners or they are sending information about your PC into the Internet, by using a part of, or in case of attack, your whole bandwidth. So now as you can see, protecting your computer is not only necessity, but it's as well way to avoid trouble.

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I wish you pleasant time on the Internet