There are multiple factors that tin dramatically influence the download speed on your Mac. Factors slowing down your downloads may be external, like the type of Net connection used (cable, fiber, DSL), the Internet plan y'all've purchased from your Isp, and fifty-fifty the processing capabilities of your device. Sometimes, to speed up the downloads, you just need to tune the settings of your downloading app.

Let'south review all the factors that can hold back your downloads to be able to address the potential issues.

1. Bodily Speed of Your Internet Connection

If you are constantly experiencing sluggish performance, like buffering problems when watching videos or wearisome-loading websites, it's loftier time to check your Cyberspace connection. Knowing the speed of your Internet connectedness can give you an verbal idea near what'due south going on and will assist you troubleshoot the slow speeds.

The easiest fashion to accurately mensurate the bandwidth speed of your Cyberspace connection is to use a special online service, like Speedtest , or any other you lot adopt. The service volition determine the performance of your Internet connection taking into account both download and upload speed indexes, likewise as latency (network delays). The speed can exist likewise tested on unlike servers - local and remote ones.

The download speed shows how rapidly your device is downloading information from the Internet. On the opposite, the upload speed indicates the speed at which your device can upload information to the Internet. Both types are usually measured in Mbps (one megabit per second), which is equivalent to 1,000 Kbps. The higher the rating, the faster your Internet is.

Don't get confused with the difference between megabits (Mbit) and megabytes (MB).

1 byte = 8 bits

So, the speed value of 100 Mbps, indicated in your Internet service provider contract, is equivalent to 12,five MBps.

When you've finally got a sense of the bodily parameters of your Net speed, y'all can at present see where the problem may potentially lie. For example, depression download and upload speeds may signify that there'due south an consequence with your Internet access provider (Isp).

Your actual speed may be different from the i promised in your contract. Even the slightest departure can significantly affect the download speed.

Also, when getting slow download and upload speeds parameters, make sure to check the hardware. Using a incorrect router or the cable which is insufficient for the bandwidth (for example, a 100 Mbps Ethernet cable while you have a 500 Mbps connection) may involuntarily slow down your Internet.

On the other paw, if speed tests show acceptable parameters, you may consider upgrading to a dissimilar plan from your Internet service provider that features higher speeds, to maintain the type of online activeness that you exercise. Bank check the maximum download and upload bandwidths allowed past your ISP. Downloading speed cannot surpass the i prepare up by the ISP. Torrenting, watching online videos, uploading tons of images to Dropbox or gaming surely crave college speeds than checking your email twice a mean solar day, so consider updating your ISP package.

When speaking of Folx, its maximum download speed is limited by the bandwidth speed and in reality can be even lower, since a certain part of the bandwidth always belongs to the service traffic. However, Folx's download speed may be significantly college when downloading within a local network. 2. Outgoing Traffic Limitations

Often your download speed can be downgraded past the speed limits imposed by the contributing part. For example, a server can restrict the outgoing traffic or seeders can be deliberately limiting their upload speed.
3. The Device Type

Write speed is not the aforementioned for diverse devices similar network drives, external hard disk drives, USB flash drives, etc. For example, the speed at which data is read/written becomes the distinguishing factor when comparing HDD and SSD, the latter providing remarkably enhanced performance. So bear in heed that performance restrictions and transfer rate of certain storage devices tin can significantly affect the download speed.
iv. Restricted Net and Censorship

Some countries with the censored Internet use diverse techniques to restrict admission to unwanted content, including site blocking. Prc's infamous "Nifty Firewall" is a classic example of Net censorship. The users have to rely on various circumvention tools to admission the blocked content, east.g. using proxy servers exterior the firewall. Our recommendation is to use the desktop VPN running every bit a standalone application instead of an improver to a browser, to encrypt all the traffic from your Mac to the Internet.
5. Internet service provider Bandwidth ThrottlingThrottling is an intentional slowing down of your Net connectedness speed during the peak traffic hours past your ISP. Usually, information technology is done to regulate network when many people are all using the Internet at the same time. You'll find that speeds render to normal late at night, for example, and so you can try downloading when fewer people are online. Folx features a scheduling option to set up your downloads strategically during the off-hours.


Apart from limiting Net speeds at certain times of a day, many Internet providers tin can as well use another type of bandwidth throttling called Peer-to-Peer traffic command. This traffic-shaping technique restricts the speeds for specific websites and protocols, which commonly affects such activities equally video streaming, file-sharing, gaming, etc. Reducing the data usage can badly hold upwards downloading, especially from P2P networks like BitTorrent. The only way to bypass the P2P cake is to use VPN. Information encryption prevents your Internet access provider from determining what type of traffic you lot are having. Since it becomes impossible to inspect your traffic, there'southward no mode to throttle it. However, call back that using VPN itself degrades the Cyberspace speed to a certain level. Speed drops tin be caused past multiple factors, including extra CPU usage, excessive load on the router, latency acquired by sending your data to a VPN server that is located geographically far away, and so on. Moreover, note that the college the encryption level is, the more noticeably the speed is hampered.

To heave the download speed when performing direct downloads  (via URL), y'all can effort splitting the download into a number of threads. Fast downloading is ensured by multiple simultaneous connections (upward to twenty) retrieving the same file split into numerous data packets. However, sometimes multithreading may potentially make things slower, say when the server is limiting the download speed for each connection or if the server is single-threaded. In this case, individual wait time for each thread becomes longer, thus using more than threads makes the download slower than using fewer threads. To accelerate the speed of torrent downloading , try playing with Folx settings :


1. Make sure the Incoming TCP port is open up ( Folx->Preferences…->Torrents->Network ):

Opening incoming TCP port lets you lot connect to a peradventure bigger number of peers and ultimately improves the download speed.
Closed incoming TCP port does non prevent you from connecting to other peers, provided their incoming TCP port is open. Nonetheless, when yous close the incoming TCP port, other users cannot connect to you lot. To make the port bachelor for the incoming TCP connections, do the following:

  • Make certain an antivirus software or firewall are non blocking the incoming connections for Folx. To know how to configure the antivirus special settings, refer to its user manual.

If firewall is activated on your Mac, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Firewall (if enabled) > Firewall Options . Allow incoming connections for Folx.

  • Make sure NAT-PMP and UPnP options are on for automatic port forwarding  ( Folx->Preferences…->Torrents->Network ).
  • Manual port forwarding tin can be customized in the router settings. Refer to the router user manual for detailed instructions. Notation that the "Randomize port on launch" option should be disabled in Folx network options.
  • Sometimes your Internet service provider can block not-standard ports, and then you have to contact the provider to remove the restrictions.

2. Go to Folx->Preferences…->Torrents->Peers  and enable the following options:


DHT Network
 Local Peer Discovery
Peer Exchange
Prefer encrypted peers The "Ignore unencrypted peers" option should be disabled:

3. Call up that the BitTorrent protocol uses a kind of fairness organization to prevent the users from setting upload speed too low to regulate the bandwidth consumption. So limiting upload speed can decrease download speed, as well. Try keeping a reasonable upload limit so that your download speed is non affected negatively.