I'm having a strange problem with my use of Firefox 1.5 that I can't for the life of me figure out. Last year I had a 2mbps broadband line and was regularly getting download speeds of 200KB/sec when downloading files using Firefox and also when downloading via external download managers such as Getright or Fresh Download. However, I've recently moved to an 8mbps line with a different ISP and now find that although I can get download speeds of as much as 450KB/sec through my external download managers, Firefox now only allows me to download files at speeds of up to 50KB/sec. Why would the browser have these problems when the connection itself is clearly not to blame, since I get such high-speeds through download managers? Could it be related to Firefox 1.5 and is there any reason that moving back to Firefox 1.0.7 might solve the problem? Thanks for any help.

User, SWAG, IMHO, either connection should be fast enough for the difference to be hidden and unnoticable. If you're detecting a slowdown, that smacks of ads to me. Firefox blocks some ads so they don't display, but suspect it still has to go to the site and download them, display or no. The only solution to that lag that I've heard of is to cut down on what's running in the background. If you discover another, please let us know. HTH. Ed in Texas.

Thanks for the reply Ed. I'm pretty strict on keeping Firefox clear of ads (NoScript, Popups Die extensions etc) though but I've now also noticed that the download speeds are equally slow in IE, so it looks like I'm stuck having to DL files using just external managers unless someone else has any ideas. Cheers