How to Increase Internet speed in Windows 10

How to Increase Internet speed in Windows 10

As you probably know, Microsoft offers its latest operating system, Windows 10, as a free update for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users who own a genuine copy. While the topic of whether to make this update or not is still debatable, as some users encounter various issues, while others are happy with the new features, we are here to talk about another "problem" that Windows 10 users might face and that is the slow Internet speed.

Luckily, there are some quick-fix tricks that will help boost your Internet speed by turning off features that use a large portion of your Internet connection's bandwidth.

Install proper WiFi drivers

First of all, you might want to make sure that the latest official drivers for your wireless network card are installed on your computer. Even though Windows 10 can recognize and automatically install the drivers needed by your WiFi card, they might not be up to date, causing your hardware to function at less than its maximum potential.

The best way to determine if your drivers are the latest ones, simply head over to your manufacturer's website, download and install the appropriate drivers. A reboot might be required for the changes to take effect.

Turn Off Updates Delivery

Once you have installed the latest drivers for your WiFi card, it is time to start disabling features that might affect your Internet speed. One of them is the "Updates Delivery".

In case you don't know, "Updates Delivery" is a service that is automatically enabled by Windows 10, which, basically, turns your computer into a file sharing server. This means that other users around you can download Windows Update files from your computer via P2P sharing. It is just like using uTorrent or any other BitTorrent client, only that you are the one seeding, while other Windows 10 users are downloading data.

In order to disable this feature, you will have to access the "Settings" menu, click on the "Advanced Options" link in the "Windows Update" tab, select the "Choose how updates are delivered" option and simply turn off the button there, like you can see in the image below.

Additionally, if you want to share and download the Windows Update files only between the computers in your local network (like the ones in your house and at you workplace) and not with all Internet users, then you can do that by clicking on the radio button called "PCs on my local network".

Disable Windows Updates

Another feature that could consume a large part of your Internet connection's bandwidth is the download process for your Windows updates.

As you probably know, Windows 10 automatically retrieves updates whenever they are available and an Internet connection is present. This will, most certainly, lead to a slower Internet speed, causing your web pages to take longer to load or lag spikes to appear while playing online games.

An easy way to disable the automatic download of Windows Updates is by setting your WiFi Internet connection as a metered one so that you "trick" Windows to believe that you are using a mobile data connection. Whenever you want to download the updates (and I recommend that you do that), simply turn your WiFi connection back to an unmetered one or connect to a completely different unmetered connection.

Set WiFi connection as metered

Close background applications

There is a high possibility that you are using some applications which can drain your Internet connection's bandwidth and closing them whenever they are not in use is a good idea if you are experiencing a slow Internet speed.

Gaming clients like Steam or Origin, torrent downloaders like uTorrent or BitComet, cloud-sharing applications like DropBox or Google Drive, anti-viruses, firewalls, Nvidia GeForce Experience and other similar tools can greatly affect your connection's speed and turning them off when not in use might fix that problem.

Flush DNS and empty temporary folder

If you are constantly browsing multiple websites, you might have noticed a decrease in your overall web page loading time. This is caused by the multifarious records stored in your DNS cache or because your user profile's temporary folder is filled with entries.

To clean your DNS cache, all you have to do is access the "Command Prompt" (either right-click on the start menu or type "cmd" in the search bar) using your administrator account and type the following command:

ipconfig /flushdns

Flush DNS

It should only take a couple of seconds and, after the process is completed you can either type "exit" or simply close the window.

After flushing your DNS cache, you can also access your user profile's temporary folder and delete all the entries found within it.

To do that, open the "Run" window by pressing the Windows key+R combination, type "%temp%" and press "Enter".

Run command

This will bring you to the temporary folder, where you can view, move, copy and delete any entry. Simple, isn't it?

Delete temp folder entries

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many ways which can be used to increase the speed of your Internet connection under Windows 10: by disabling features or closing applications that are using a large part of your bandwidth, for example. Of course, these are not the only methods that you can use to boost your speed, but they are the ones that are commonly used when dealing with this type of problem.

Just a quick tip before you leave: you might want to stay away from most of the Internet optimization tools found on the web, as they might prove to be quite the opposite to what they advertise themselves to be.

If you have any additional questions or comments, feel free to leave me a message in the section below.