Online Family cuts download speeds to 1 /10th of normal

Archive
1

I had installed Online Family on my daughters PC and noticed that web browsing was SIGNIFICANTLY slower. So I ran a couple of speed tests using both www.speedtest.net and www.speakeasy.net/speedtest both of which showed her download speeds at around ~2Mbs. She was getting ~20Mbs before, so I uninstalled Online Family and speeds returned to the normal ~20Mbs.

 

I did not try installing a packet sniffer to see for sure, but my guess is that the way Online Family works is by making some servers at Norton a proxy server that filters all web traffic. I would then assume that these servers are throttled to only allow ~2Mbs worth of traffic to any given PC. Either way Online Family seems like a great tool but if it is going to cut browsing speed to 1 /10th of normal it becomes not worth it. For now Online Family will remain uninstalled and I am going to have to try and find a different product but I really hope this gets fixed sometime in the future. This seems like an otherwise good product.

 

NOTES:

OS: Windows XP SP3

Browser: Tried Firefox 3.6, Firefox 5.0 and IE 6 (all exibited the problem)

2

The only security products installed were Norton Online Family and Norton Security Suite 3.8.0.41. NOF has been removed for now but NSS is still installed and running fine.

3

It has been a week now, are there any updates?

4

I had installed Online Family on my daughters PC and noticed that web browsing was SIGNIFICANTLY slower. So I ran a couple of speed tests using both www.speedtest.net and www.speakeasy.net/speedtest both of which showed her download speeds at around ~2Mbs. She was getting ~20Mbs before, so I uninstalled Online Family and speeds returned to the normal ~20Mbs.

 

I did not try installing a packet sniffer to see for sure, but my guess is that the way Online Family works is by making some servers at Norton a proxy server that filters all web traffic. I would then assume that these servers are throttled to only allow ~2Mbs worth of traffic to any given PC. Either way Online Family seems like a great tool but if it is going to cut browsing speed to 1 /10th of normal it becomes not worth it. For now Online Family will remain uninstalled and I am going to have to try and find a different product but I really hope this gets fixed sometime in the future. This seems like an otherwise good product.

 

NOTES:

OS: Windows XP SP3

Browser: Tried Firefox 3.6, Firefox 5.0 and IE 6 (all exibited the problem)

5

Scottp,

 

Thanks for the inquiry.  We are checking into the issue.  I'll get back to you as soon as I get any updates on this.

 

 

Thanks,

Katie

6

Hi Scottp,

 

Please let us know what version of Norton Safety Minder you have on the PC.  You can find it by clicking Norton Safety Minder icon in the system tray and selecting About Norton Safety Minder.

 

Also, can you please also upgrade Norton Security Suite to the latest version to see if it helps?

 

 

Thanks,

Katie

7

I have uninstalled NOF and NSM because of the problem described. I am pretty sure that all of the Norton products were up to date since I had all of the autoupdate options turned on.