Speed up web surfing in Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid)

Hamish Taylor
Monday, 17 November 2008 02:36

Opinion and Analysis

If web pages don't load after following the instructions on Page 1, try the following trouble-shooting tips and tricks.

Firstly, as squid installs itself as a service that loads on start-up, we are going to check if the service is actually running. The easiest way to do this is...(queue the dramatic music!)...using the Command Line Interface. Go to Applications, Accessories, Terminal.

Type in the following: sudo service squid status, and hit Enter and then your password. If you get a message that the service is running, then it should be working through Firefox. Reboot your computer and try Firefox again. 

If however, it says the service is stopped, then type in the same command (or hit the up arrow on your keyboard) and replace "status" with "start" or "restart" and then Enter. It should only take a few seconds to get it going again. If you try the "status" command again, it should tell you that the service is running.

The second trouble-shooting tip is to disable IPv6 on your computer. This is also incredibly easy. In the Command Line Interface terminal, type in the following: sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/aliases, followed by your password. This opens up a simple text editor, which is very similar to Windows Notepad.

Change the line: "alias net-pf-10 ipv6" to "alias net-pf-10 off" (so, simply delete the "ipv6" and replace with "off"). This disables IPv6. Save the file, close the editor window and the terminal, reboot and try again.

If you still can't get it going (and I'd be really surprised), then let me know here and I'll do what I can to help you!

Note that these instructions only work for 8.10. If you are using a previous version then they are a bit different. You have to edit the /etc/squid/squid.conf file to uncomment and create the visible_hostname field and then run sudo squid -z to create the directories.

So, there you have it. A simple way to help speed up your web browsing and lower your downloads. 

As always, please leave feedback, comments and questions. However, I will only respond to comments left on iTWire article discussion forums. The direct link for this article is here.