2kmaro
Think
Premium,ExMod 1 BC
join:2000-07-11
ColossalCave
clubs:  
| [ALL] Speed and the Security Suite
I've been playing a bit with the new Cox Security suite and in reporting about it there was at least one other member who said it slowed his connection down.
I have this on 2 machines and I checked one machine a couple of days ago and couldn't come up with anything really definitive: »[ALL] Cox 'Security/Privacy' Suite Available
But this evening things look a bit differently.
I switched from the original distributed program to the new one offering silent updates this evening. During the process I ran speed tests to dfw.speakeasy.net just as I had with the other machine. Here are my results:
With the original version of the security suite in place:
Down / Up
1485 / 501
1491 / 462
1480 / 502
After removing the old and rebooting the system:
Down / Up
4908 / 504
4693 / 502
4891 / 503
So there was a distinct improvement after removing it for the download speeds. I then installed and activated the new version and rebooted the system again:
New Version Installed:
Down / Up
3392 / 247
3485 / 220
3242 / 221
This version has apparently reduced download speed by about 25% and has reduced upload by close to 50%.
The question becomes WHY? Why would it impact this machine so much when it showed no real significant change on the other one. Both machines are running Windows XP Pro with SP2 and both have 1 GB RAM. The 'other' machine tested previously has an AMD Opteron 150 in it, this one tested tonight has an AMD 3200+ in it.
A similar situation was encountered with ZoneAlarm with their release of 5.0 and 5.1 a while back: some users (myself included) experienced a big slowdown with that version of the ZA firewall in place while others had no slowdown at all. It looks as if this may be the story with this offering from Cox also. At least the new version of this suite has less impact on download than the previous one did, at least for me on this one machine.
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then think again! |
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dellboy
Yeah...I Dont Know
Premium
join:2003-02-15
Topeka, KS
| thanks for bringing this up 2kmaro. i spent the last 7 days trying to figure out where my upload went. I had been running this software since it was first available. Last week sometime i noticed that my speeds were just awful. Up until this point i had no problems at all with the suite. After speaking with coxtech1 a couple of days ago and finding out everything on the line looked good i decided to try uninstalling the security suite and i had not upgraded to the newer version that you speak of unless it updated itself to the new version.
speed test earlier in the week
Speed test @ sfo.speakeasy.net 3819/529 kbps.. and this one is pretty fast compared to most of them i did
test since uninstalling
2005-05-08 10:16:25 EST: 5240 / 739
most of the test i ran were right in the ballpark or your 20%DL and 50% UL
i don't think that it has anything to do with the computer itself i had the suite installed on 4 computers ranging from a Athlon 64FX with a gig of ram. To and old gateway with a pentium processor and 256 ram. The speed test ran the same all the way around |
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2kmaro
Think
Premium,ExMod 1 BC
join:2000-07-11
ColossalCave
clubs: | The software does not update itself. You have to shut it down, uninstall it from the Control Panel Add/Remove Software list and then reinstall the new.
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then think again! |
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eastex
Premium
join:2003-09-23
Texas
 ·Suddenlink
| reply to 2kmaro
The following is a copy of a couple of posts I made in another thread concerning the Security Suite slowing down my connection.
"As an update to my previous post, after running the security suite for two weeks I was consistently experiencing a loss in download speed from what has been a very solid 3.8 to 3.9 Mbps down to 2.4 to 2.5 Mbps while running the security suite. After uninstalling the suite, speeds were immediately back up to the norm of 3.8 - 3.9Mbps. I contacted their customer service and advised of the problem I had encountered. Customer service was very quick to respond and advised that I install a scripting update for XP and try again. I followed these recommendations, installed the scripting update, reinstalled the security suite, and instantly was back down to 2.4 - 2.5 Mbps download speed. Long story short, I like the security suite, but not enough to endure this much of a loss of download speed. Its a good start, just make it better."
eastex
And then a follow-up to that post:
"As a follow up to my update and to 2kmaro's update, I had to actually uninstall the program to see the speed difference. I have the 4000/512 service running on an A64 3200, 2 x 512 Kingston Value Ram, ECS 755a2 MB, 80 GB IDE HD, and XP Home for the OS. I actually hope they can get the problems resolved, as I really liked the operation of the Security Suite".
eastex |
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dellboy
Yeah...I Dont Know
Premium
join:2003-02-15
Topeka, KS | reply to 2kmaro
well then i dont think it had anything to do with the new software then cause i hadnt done that. But yet i just started acting up about a week ago |
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2kmaro
Think
Premium,ExMod 1 BC
join:2000-07-11
ColossalCave
clubs:
| If you had it out of the loop (shut down) it might have. If you've got some protection out front, like a router, then you might test with it running and test with it shut down.
By their very nature a software firewall has to slow down traffic just a little bit, but these numbers are much higher than they should be, especially on high end systems.
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then think again! |
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dellboy
Yeah...I Dont Know
Premium
join:2003-02-15
Topeka, KS
| Ok i just reinstalled the suite on my main rig and it seems not to be affecting the speeds at all right now
2005-05-15 15:19:34 EST: 5713 / 759
Your download speed : 5850196 bps, or 5713 kbps.
A 714.1 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 777302 bps, or 759 kbps
if anyone else is willing to reinstall the suite i would like to see the results |
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2kmaro
Think
Premium,ExMod 1 BC
join:2000-07-11
ColossalCave
clubs:
1 edit | This may end up being like the ZoneAlarm mess: affects some users, doesn't affect others and seemingly no specific reason to be found as to why a person falls into whichever group they end up falling in to.
[Edit] Well, from all I've done this evening I can only say that the results are inconclusive. Without reporting 2 hours of test results, I'll just say that it appears that the security suite may impact the download speed at times, the fact that speeds of over 4000kbps (4Mbps) can be reached with it in place and functioning says that it cannot be held singly responsible for reduced speeds during testing.
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then think again! |
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Triedit
@cox.net | reply to 2kmaro
The Cox Security Suite hogs too many resources. It substantially slowed my new HP. |
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