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General discussionThere is Definitely Something Wrong With Download Speeds Here.(65 posts)(65 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 21, 2024
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Timboli: Yep, GOG are doing something to limit things or maybe it is Fastly.
I am at the bottom of Australia, and for some reason the server for me is in North America.
Yes, that's exactly the reason why you get crappy download speeds. Fastly limits the download speed to crap (I get 200-300 KB/s) when you download from the wrong CDN server. I know that because I tested this thoroughly.

Because I have also recently suffered from unacceptable download speeds I contacted GOG support to tell them there was something wrong with the CDN servers. Naturally they tried troubleshooting on my side and asked me to make sure I reset DNS settings and configure the Google DNS server.

Since I wondered why the DNS would have an influence on the download speed I decided to make some tests. This is what I did:

1) I resolved gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com on several different DNS to which I have access to (the one belonging to my internet provider, a server from a VPN service, public DNS servers like Google, Cloudflare, etc.). And indeed I got different IPs as answer for the same domain.

I used showip.net to tell me where these IPs are from (and also to check where my current IP is from) and then selected three Fastly CDN servers for testing. One was in Austria, one in Italy and the last one in the Netherlands. My IP was from Austria, unsurprisingly.

2) I made sure there is no network problem between me and the area of the three servers by using speedtest.net which allows you to select the target server for your speed test and has many servers in basically every country. I tested with several servers in all three areas and there were no problems at all. I got close to full speed (which is 60 MB/s for my connection) in the area of all three servers. Around 50 MB/s was the worst result I saw.

3) Then I used a local DNS proxy (if you don't have one you can use the hosts file as well) to make sure the domain resolves to a server of my choosing. First I used my Austrian IP and tried to download from each of the three Fastly servers. Then I turned on the VPN to get an IP from the Netherlands and tried to download from the three servers again. The result:

Austrian IP:
Fastly Server in:
Austria: 60 MB/s
Italy: 200 KB/s
Netherland: 200 KB/s

Netherland IP:
Fastly Server in:
Austria: 200 KB/a
Italy: 200 KB/s
Netherland: 30 MB/s

P.S.: The free VPN limits the download speed so if I had a paid plan that would most likely also be (at least close to) 60 MB/s.

These results clearly point to deliberate slowdowns by Fastly. If it were a network problem (the data gets stuck somewhere between me and more far away servers) it would show on the speedtest. And there is no reason why the Netherland server would suddenly be fast just because I use a VPN since the way between me and the server doesn't get shorter, the traffic is only routed differently. I doubt that a free VPN service would have lines from Netherlands to Austria that are more than 100 times faster than any other ISP.

Then I switched the IP off again to doublecheck the previous results. Well, you can guess what happened. The results immediately went back to the Austrian result.

P.S.: Make sure to check your browser configuration and switch "DNS over HTTPS" off! This will make your browser query Google, Cloudflare (or whatever DNS over HTTPS server is configured) instead your local DNS. And this is most likely also the reason for the slowdowns. It was the Google DNS that gave me the Italian server.

Your best bet will most likely be using your providers DNS server. If you can find the correct IP of the Fastly server that is responsible for your area and use the hosts file to make sure you always resolve gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com to that IP (and don't forget to switch off DNS over HTTPS in your browser) your download speeds should increase tremendously. For me they increased by 300 times (200 KB/s -> 60 MB/s).

One more thing: Sometimes (or rather, for some games) the server (at least the one here in Austria) seems to have a per file speed limit configured. When I download Steel Division 2 for example I always only get 15 MB/s. But since this is a per file limit I can simply start 4 downloads at once and still have a total of 60 MB/s. I have no idea what that limit is supposed to be good for.

My recommendation to GOG: Get rid of Fastly, the faster the better. Even if there are ways to get around the slowdowns if you are affected once you know what to do it requires a bit of technical knowledge and a customer should never have to jump through such hoops. Most people who try GOG will quickly leave when they think this is the normal speed you get on GOG and even long term customers will most likely leave if they are affected and can't find out how to get normal speed again. Slowing the download to a crawl is something that a CDN server should NEVER do, no matter for what reason. Because that negatively reflects on the service they are hosting.
Post edited June 22, 2024 by Geralt_of_Rivia
Posted June 21, 2024
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Timboli: Yep, GOG are doing something to limit things or maybe it is Fastly.
I am at the bottom of Australia, and for some reason the server for me is in North America.
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Geralt_of_Rivia: Yes, that's exactly the reason why you get crappy download speeds. Fastly limits the download speed to crap (I get 200-300 KB/s) when you download from the wrong CDN server. I know that because I tested this thoroughly.

Because I have also recently suffered from unacceptable download speeds I contacted GOG support to tell them there was something wrong with the CDN servers. Naturally they tried troubleshooting on my side and asked me to make sure I reset DNS settings and configure the Google DNS server.

Since I wondered why the DNS would have an influence on the download speed I decided to make some tests. This is what I did:

1) I resolved gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com on several different DNS to which I have access to (the one beolnging to my internet provider, a server from a VPN service, public DNS servers like Google, Cloudflare, etc.). And indeed I got different IPs as answer for the same domain.

I used showip.net to tell me where these IPs are from (and also to check where my current IP is from) and then selected three Fastly CDN servers for testing. One was in Austria, one in Italy and the last one in the Netherlands. My IP was from Austria, unsurprisingly.

2) I made sure there is no network problem between me and the area of the three servers by using speedtest.net which allows you to select the target server for your speed test and has many servers in basically every country. I tested with several servers in all three areas and there were no problems at all. I got close to full speed (which is 60 MB/s for my connection) in the area of all three servers. Around 50 MB/s was the worst result I saw.

3) Then I used a local DNS proxy (if you don't have one you can use the hosts file as well) to make sure the domain resolves to a server of my choosing. First I used my Austrian IP and tried to download from each of the three Fastly servers. Then I turned on the VPN to get an IP from the Netherlands and tried to download from the three servers again. The result:

Austrian IP:
Fastly Server in:
Austria: 60 MB/s
Italy: 200 KB/s
Netherland: 200 KB/s

Netherland IP:
Fastly Server in:
Austria: 200 KB/a
Italy: 200 KB/s
Netherland: 30 MB/s

P.S.: The free VPN limits the download speed so if I had a paid plan that would most likely also be (at least close to) 60 MB/s.

These results clearly point to deliberate slowdowns by Fastly. If it were a network problem (the data gets stuck somewhere between me and more far away servers) it would show on the speedtest. And there is no reason why the Netherland server would suddenly be fast just because I use a VPN since the way between me and the server doesn't get shorter, the traffic is only router differently. I doubt that a free VPN service would have lines from Netherlands to Austria that are more than 100 times faster than any other ISP.

Then I switched the IP off again to doublecheck the previous results. Well, you can guess what happened. The results immediately went back to the Austrian result.

P.S.: Make sure to check your browser configuration and switch "DNS over HTTPS" off! This will make your browser query Google, Cloudflare (or whatever DNS over HTTPS server is configured) instead your local DNS. And this is most likely also the reason for the slowdowns. It was the Google DNS that gave me the Italian server.

Your best bet will most likely be using your providers DNS server. If you can find the correct IP of the Fastly server that is responsible for your area and use the hosts file to make sure you always resolve gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com to that IP (and don't forget to switch off DNS over HTTPS in your browser) your download speeds should increase tremendously. For me they increased by 300 times (200 KB/s -> 60 MB/s).

One more thing: Sometimes (or rather, for some games) the server (at least the one here in Austria) seems to have a per file speed limit configured. When I download Steel Division 2 for example I always only get 15 MB/s. But since this is a per file limit I can simply start 4 downloads at once and still have a total of 60 MB/s. I have no idea what that limit is supposed to be good for.

My recommendation to GOG: Get rid of Fastly, the faster the better. Even if there are ways to get around the slowdowns if you are affected once you know what to do it requires a bit of technical knowledge and a customer should never have to jump through such hoops. Most people who try GOG will quickly leave when they think this is the normal speed you get on GOG and even long term customers will most likely leave if they are affected and can't find out how to get normal speed again. Slowing the download to a crawl is something that a CDN server should NEVER do, no matter for what reason. Because that negatively reflects on the service they are hosting.
Thanks heaps for all of that.
Now I have to see if I can work out how to capitalize on it.

For starters I am not downloading via my browser. I either use, gogcli.exe or Free Download Manager 5 or recently I have been testing with curl.exe.

I can't remember the last time I touched my host file, but that might be the way to the solution.

Maybe someone here can provide what I need for a Fastly server closer to me.

I have of course also checked out the speed my browser downloads at, which is just the same as the others (single thread).
Posted June 21, 2024
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Geralt_of_Rivia: Since I wondered why the DNS would have an influence on the download speed I decided to make some tests. This is what I did:
Thanks a bunch, that test was eye opening. Interesting if the nameservers (that you happen to use) decide which IP address you get, and if you connect to the wrong download server (even one which is still pretty close to you), you get a poor download speed.

I use my ISP's default nameservers and I always get connected to the Fastly server in the same country, which I guess explains why I don't see any issues. Then again, that doesn't explain why e.g. OFG is getting "only" 4 Mbytes/sec so his issue is probably something else than connecting to a download server abroad (as then he would apparently get only 200kB/s per file).

Since there are no Fastly servers in every country, I wonder how Fastly decides which is the fast "home server" to you, if one is not available in your country?
Post edited June 21, 2024 by timppu
Posted June 21, 2024
Wow... I thought for the past months that it was me. But now I can see it is not. I also get rather mediocre speeds here.
I am not happy it happens to more people, I am just relieved I am not alone on this.
Posted June 22, 2024
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Geralt_of_Rivia: Since I wondered why the DNS would have an influence on the download speed I decided to make some tests. This is what I did:
Hmm, for some reason I couldn't reproduce that, by changing the nameserver to google (8.8.8.8).

I tested it in Linux this time, and I got my "home server" IP address also when using the Google DNS. I made sure my DNS cache was flushed and also in Chrome browser cleared the host cache:

sudo systemd-resolve --flush-caches
sudo systemd-resolve --statistics

Google Chrome: Navigate to “chrome://net-internals/#dns” and click the “Clear host cache” button.
Mozilla Firefox: Type “about:networking#dns” in the address bar, then click the “Clear DNS Cache” button.

Checked with this that I was indeed using the 8.8.8.8 nameserver:

resolvectl dns

(I recall in Windows "ipconfig /all" tells you what nameserver(s) you are currently using?)

So I still got the same server with nslookup gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com and got ok download speed (over 20 MBytes/sec for one file).

I wonder if you can really force a certain download server by using a hosts file, like someone suggested? Can you provide the IP addresses of e.g. the Italian and maybe some US Fastly server, if you got such IP addresses in your earlier tests? I'd like to see if I can force the downloads to come from them with a hosts file, and what kind of speeds I get with the servers abroad.

EDIT: Hold on, I test with the 146.75.33.55 server that OFG listed before...
Post edited June 22, 2024 by timppu
Posted June 22, 2024
Yep, it seems to work! In Linux I entered the following into the /etc/hosts file (that is the Fastly server that e.g. OFG is apparently using by default):

146.75.33.55 gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com

For Windows users, the hosts file is at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts and you need to edit it as an administrator, here are the newbie instructions:

https://www.howtogeek.com/27350/beginner-geek-how-to-edit-your-hosts-file/

ping and nslookup to gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com now indeed return that US IP address, and I get different kinds of download speeds now: around 4 MBytes/sec for the first file, and around 5 MBytes/sec for the second file. They sound similar to what OFG reported, getting 4 MBytes/sec per file?

So in my case it didn't seem that using a foreign Fastly server would give only 200kBytes/sec download speeds, but it does indeed seem different Fastly servers give different kind of results? It isn't necessarily the geographical distance that matters that much after all, as I am getting similar download speeds (downloading US/Virginia ===> Finland) as OFG is getting there locally.

So, the workaround is to add a faster Fastly server into your hosts file, as long as you first figure out what is a fastest server for you? No need to fiddle with DNS server settings or use VPN or such to try to fool GOG/Fastly to offer you a different server...

EDIT: Unless, your browser uses DNS Over HTTPS, in which case it might disregard the hosts file altogether. For me it worked though at least with Chrome (in Linux), not sure if some browsers use DNS Over HTTPS by default and you need to disable it in browser settings.

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OldFatGuy: This is bullshit. Not even getting 4 MB/sec now. Oh, while once again checking Nexus mods and getting 45 MB/sec.
Is that per file, or the total download speed?

As I just reported, I tested downloading from the very same GOG Fastly server (US/Virginia, Ashburn?) server as you, and when downloading two different files for "Outcast - A New Beginning" at the same time, the first was downloading at around 4 MBytes/sec and the second 5 MBytes/sec, so a combined speed of 11 MBytes/sec which to me seems reasonable, if not insanely fast.

Do you see similar results? It seems the geographical distance from the download server is not necessarily always the deciding factor (as long as the lines between the locations are fast enough, I guess they are pretty fast then between Finland and US/Virginia), but how the Fastly server to which you connect is configured, and possibly how stressed it is at the moment.
Post edited June 22, 2024 by timppu
Posted June 22, 2024
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Geralt_of_Rivia: Since I wondered why the DNS would have an influence on the download speed I decided to make some tests. This is what I did:
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timppu: Hmm, for some reason I couldn't reproduce that, by changing the nameserver to google (8.8.8.8).
I just checked the Google DNS server again. It seems to give you different replies depending on your own IP.

With a Netherlands IP I get:

c:\>nslookup gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com 8.8.8.8
Server: dns.google
Address: 8.8.8.8

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: gog-cdn.us-eu.map.fastly.net
Address: 151.101.37.55
Aliases: gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com

This server is in the Netherlands as well.


With an Austrian IP I get:

c:\>nslookup gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com 8.8.8.8
Server: dns.google
Address: 8.8.8.8

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: gog-cdn.us-eu.map.fastly.net
Address: 146.75.53.55
Aliases: gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com

And that server is in Italy according to showip.net.


The one I should be getting is 199.232.17.55 which is right here in Vienna.
Posted June 22, 2024
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timppu: Yep, it seems to work! In Linux I entered the following into the /etc/hosts file (that is the Fastly server that e.g. OFG is apparently using by default):

146.75.33.55 gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com

For Windows users, the hosts file is at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts and you need to edit it as an administrator, here are the newbie instructions:

https://www.howtogeek.com/27350/beginner-geek-how-to-edit-your-hosts-file/

ping and nslookup to gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com now indeed return that US IP address, and I get different kinds of download speeds now: around 4 MBytes/sec for the first file, and around 5 MBytes/sec for the second file. They sound similar to what OFG reported, getting 4 MBytes/sec per file?

So in my case it didn't seem that using a foreign Fastly server would give only 200kBytes/sec download speeds, but it does indeed seem different Fastly servers give different kind of results? It isn't necessarily the geographical distance that matters that much after all, as I am getting similar download speeds (downloading US/Virginia ===> Finland) as OFG is getting there locally.

So, the workaround is to add a faster Fastly server into your hosts file, as long as you first figure out what is a fastest server for you? No need to fiddle with DNS server settings or use VPN or such to try to fool GOG/Fastly to offer you a different server...

EDIT: Unless, your browser uses DNS Over HTTPS, in which case it might disregard the hosts file altogether. For me it worked though at least with Chrome (in Linux), not sure if some browsers use DNS Over HTTPS by default and you need to disable it in browser settings.

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OldFatGuy: This is bullshit. Not even getting 4 MB/sec now. Oh, while once again checking Nexus mods and getting 45 MB/sec.
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timppu: Is that per file, or the total download speed?

As I just reported, I tested downloading from the very same GOG Fastly server (US/Virginia, Ashburn?) server as you, and when downloading two different files for "Outcast - A New Beginning" at the same time, the first was downloading at around 4 MBytes/sec and the second 5 MBytes/sec, so a combined speed of 11 MBytes/sec which to me seems reasonable, if not insanely fast.

Do you see similar results? It seems the geographical distance from the download server is not necessarily always the deciding factor (as long as the lines between the locations are fast enough, I guess they are pretty fast then between Finland and US/Virginia), but how the Fastly server to which you connect is configured, and possibly how stressed it is at the moment.
11 Megabytes a second is not fast. Say you had a 500 megabit connection (average basic is 300 these days in North Am) and were only getting 11 megabytes a second. You should be getting at least 50 megabytes a second for your file transfer. GOG needs to setup a server on an oil barge in the Pacific ocean for the west side of North and South Am.
Posted June 22, 2024
nslookup gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com 8.8.8.8
Server: dns.google
Address: 8.8.8.8

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: gog-cdn.us-eu.map.fastly.net
Address: 146.75.41.55
Aliases: gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com

Not having any luck here, and right now it is late Saturday afternoon, so I am not even getting my usual low speed, so well less than 1 Megabyte a second.

Earlier I had tried a bunch of addresses that were reputedly Fastly ones for where I am, and the average speed I was getting was between 1.2 and 1.4 Megabytes a second. But generally on average it settles to 1.3 Megabytes a second.

So it still seems to me that for one stream I am being limited to that average speed.
Posted June 22, 2024
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u2jedi: 11 Megabytes a second is not fast. Say you had a 500 megabit connection (average basic is 300 these days in North Am) and were only getting 11 megabytes a second. You should be getting at least 50 megabytes a second for your file transfer. GOG needs to setup a server on an oil barge in the Pacific ocean for the west side of North and South Am.
I guess it depends on your viewpoint. I have a 600Mbit/s connection (speedtest.net often gives me results close to those, like 570-590), but I am not really expecting some random web download server abroad fully utilize my whole internet. I don't necessarily even want to because my kids and wife use the same internet all the time with their devices, we are streaming TV channels and movies all the time from e.g. Rakuten TV, etc.

Also, take into account that apparently the issue for OFG was how fast the download is per file (one download thread), not the total speed. I tested OFG's "home server" with two download threads, and it already went over double (4MB/s + 5MB/s). I guess I should have tested whether I could have multiplied it even more by starting a third and fourth download thread.

You can't compare a single browser file download to what you get on Steam or Epic clients (or Galaxy for that matter), as those tend to use several download threads as well, automatically.

What if I have a 10 Gbit/s internet at home? Should I start complaining if GOG downloads don't utilize even 50% of that, 5 Gbit/s? Your assumption that any service "should" offer 50MBytes/sec (400 Mbits/sec) is just an opinion, based on nothing.

Yesterday Steam downloaded a big update for Team Fortress 2, and it didn't download it anywhere near 50 MBytes/sec either. I think it hovered at around 5 MBytes/sec mostly, but it fluctuated. I have certainly seen faster download speeds with Steam too, not sure if updates are downloaded more slowly than when you download&install a new game on Steam. It could even be that as an update tends to be smaller, it is downloaded in one thread even on Steam, hence it may download much slower.


Anyway, what we know now about the GOG browser download servers, two things make me curious at the moment:

1. How does GOG/Fastly decide to which server you will be connected? At least it doesn't seem it is always the one which is geographically closest to you (in my case it is though), of course there may be more complicated algorithm there like it tries to route to one which has lots of free network capacity, but in the process might end up routing to a server which has poor internet lines/routing to that client, and that client would have gotten a better download speed somewhere else to which the lines are stronger. Just guessing here, I haven't ever had to design or maintain such a CDN system so I don't know how they normally work and select the server.

2. Why does it seem different GOG Fastly servers appear to be configured so differently? Some seem to offer 20-25 MBytes/sec even with one file, but not more even if you start several download threads, while some seem to offer e.g. 4-5 MBytes/sec per file, but that multiplies if you start several download threads? And then some report these oddballs where they get only e.g. 200 kBytes/sec per file even if the server is in the same continent.


To the side: have to be also careful with your own settings when testing. Yesterday when I was testing on my Linux PC, I wondered why am I getting "only" 10 MBytes/sec total download speed on it when I just got 25 MBytes/sec on a Windows PC, was it some kind of Linux thing or what.

Then I checked and realized that for some reason my Linux was connecting to the slower 2.4GHz wifi on my router, not the 5 GHz wifi. Manually switching it to the faster wifi fixed it and I was again getting over 20 MBytes/sec downloads.
Post edited June 22, 2024 by timppu
Posted June 22, 2024
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Timboli: Earlier I had tried a bunch of addresses that were reputedly Fastly ones for where I am, and the average speed I was getting was between 1.2 and 1.4 Megabytes a second. But generally on average it settles to 1.3 Megabytes a second.
So did you force your GOG browser downloads to certain Fastly servers, e.g. with a hosts file, or how?

Did you make sure that you don't have e.g. DNS-over-HTTPS enabled in your browser, as that apparently will not pay any attention to the hosts file? I don't know if there is some alternative to using a similar system even when using DNS-over-HTTPS, besides disabling that feature which does sound useful for some cases. Still, even if one wants to use DNS-over-HTTPS, they might still want to locally set some alternative IP addresses to some hosts, like in this case.

Just running ping or nslookup and getting the desired IP address might not matter, if the browser that you use for downloading still decides not to care about your hosts file (ping and nslookup do, they don't have any reason not to). So, even if nslookup claimed you will be connected to some other Fastly server, in reality you still connected to the default one with your browser (or whatever you used for the downloads)? Confusing...

If you connect to some Fastly server that others report is fine and gives ok download speeds, and you can confirm somehow that you are indeed connecting to that one, and you still get poor download speeds, then I think the only possible explanation is that either the main internet lines that route you to that point are congested, or there is some odd issue either on your PC or ISP (specifically affecting GOG browser downloads?).
Posted June 22, 2024
Oh yeah, and saying it out loud again: offering an optional p2p/torrent download option, like e.g. Humble Store does (you don't have to use some official Humble client for that, you can use any torrent client), would alleviate or even eliminate this whole question about the download speeds.

Whether GOG has resources, money or will to try to set up a similar optional system, i don't know. If they did, they'd possibly offer it as an option within the Galaxy client (which would be better than nothing, but it wouldn't help on Linux, especially on my ARM-based Raspberry Pi4 which I am actually using right now to write this message, testing out the 64bit Raspberry OS that i just installed...).

Well, even if they offered it officially only as a Galaxy client feature, maybe users could make their own Linux-friendly or OS-agnostic python or C++ tool, similarly like gogrepoc.py and lgogdownloader are nowadays optional third-party solutions to downloading one's GOG games.
Post edited June 22, 2024 by timppu
Posted June 22, 2024
Hmm, I tried to test the Vienna/Netherlands/Italy servers from Geralt's message, to see if I see similar slow download speeds with any of them. This time testing in Windows (yesterday I tested on Linux).

However, after adding one of them to the Windows hosts file, running "ipconfig /flushdns" and also clearing the DNS cache within the browser... "ping gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com" does return the IP address that I entered, but "nslookup gog-cdn-fastly.gog.com" returns the Helsinki IP address that I get by default?

It is as if in Windows ping does check the hosts file, while nslookup doesn't? I think in Linux they both returned the IP address I had entered into the hosts file, but maybe I should double check it...

Either way, I am unsure if it makes any sense to test it in Windows, as I don't know which IP address Firefox or Edge is using now. Maybe there is some easy way to confirm that within the browser?
Posted June 22, 2024
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timppu: So did you force your GOG browser downloads to certain Fastly servers, e.g. with a hosts file, or how?
I only added what was needed to the host file, as my downloader was gogcli.exe ... a single thread program.
That is the program I need to get improvements working with, not my browser.

Back prior to the CDN crash in 2023, where downloading from GOG was not available for a while until fixed, my downloads (single thread) with gogcli.exe were around 5 Megabytes a second.

Once the CDN issue was eventually fixed (so they claimed), I have been getting much slower speeds ever since. In fact, for a while I was getting well under 1 Megabyte a second, often less than 500 Kilobytes a second. So it was real lousy for a couple of weeks, and then eventually settled down to between 1.2 and 1.3 Megabytes a second.

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timppu: Did you make sure that you don't have e.g. DNS-over-HTTPS enabled in your browser, as that apparently will not pay any attention to the hosts file? I don't know if there is some alternative to using a similar system even when using DNS-over-HTTPS, besides disabling that feature which does sound useful for some cases. Still, even if one wants to use DNS-over-HTTPS, they might still want to locally set some alternative IP addresses to some hosts, like in this case.

Just running ping or nslookup and getting the desired IP address might not matter, if the browser that you use for downloading still decides not to care about your hosts file (ping and nslookup do, they don't have any reason not to). So, even if nslookup claimed you will be connected to some other Fastly server, in reality you still connected to the default one with your browser (or whatever you used for the downloads)? Confusing...

If you connect to some Fastly server that others report is fine and gives ok download speeds, and you can confirm somehow that you are indeed connecting to that one, and you still get poor download speeds, then I think the only possible explanation is that either the main internet lines that route you to that point are congested, or there is some odd issue either on your PC or ISP (specifically affecting GOG browser downloads?).
The downloading was certainly using the Hosts value, as I could make it fail with an incomplete entry. And earlier in the day, some addresses seemed to give me a slightly better speed, with a constant 1.4 megabytes a second. Usually I only get 1.3 Megabytes at best now.

What I am hoping for, is someone else here from AUS, providing the server address they use, so I know for sure.

P.S. I have a 50 Megabit connection, hence why I usually get around 5 Megabytes a second for downloads, certainly from other sites, but no longer from GOG, unless I use a multi-stream downloader (i.e. FDM5).
Post edited June 22, 2024 by Timboli
Posted June 22, 2024
For everyone checking DNS note that at least in the US ISPs will at least some of the time intercept unencrypted DNS intended for other servers so you need to use DNS over TLS or HTTPS to actually query other servers.

The issue with Firefox may be that Mozilla's DOH resolver policy limits the use of EDNS Client Subnet in some cases for privacy reasons and ECS affects the location of the IP address returned.

I get about 1MB/s download due to my slow DSL (although they are charging me the same as 40x faster fiber :( ) so I can't help with the testing :(.
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General discussionThere is Definitely Something Wrong With Download Speeds Here.(65 posts)(65 posts)
(65 posts)