At times I found it took a long time to load pages on this forum and realised it was due to the page not displaying until it had loaded an advert/s from adjug.com. So, I did a little tweak of my HOSTS file and now it loads like a rocket

Here's what to do:

1. Browse to the folder C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\
2. Locate the file called HOSTS (it has no file extension) and open it with Notepad (i.e. double-click it and when it tells you it can't open it, choose Notepad as the program you want to use)
3. Add these lines to the bottom of the file (you can delete the rest and have just these lines in there if you want)

4. Save the file (make sure that you don't save it as HOSTS.txt)
5. Close all of your browser windows (or restart your system)
6. Return to the Fiso Forum in double-quick time.

Editing the HOSTS file is not harmful to your system at all - it is a commonly used tool amongst network engineers and developers, but you should find the forum is a lot faster to load no matter what browser you use.


*edit* - I included Spoogehead's instructions into this post to make it easier to follow.

That has gone right over my head but I have found FISO dreadfully slow in loading pages of late - possibly since the webhost move?????

I agree,the page loading is painfully slow at present. Thanks Jules for the tip - like murf,it's all a bit over my head, but I'll follow your suggestion when I get time - unless Admin comes up with a solution in the meantime.

Thanks Jules - I've found page loading really bad as well at times. Step by step of the above:

1. Use Windows Explorer to navigate to C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc and you should see a file called hosts
2. Open it with notepad (ie double click it and when it tells you it can't open it, choose Notepad as the program you want to use)
3. Copy and paste the lines above into the file, save and close it
4. Close all browsers and re-open

Editing your Hosts file is a much more effective way of controlling ads than any ad blocking program in my view.
The only downside is you have to know what to block!

Thanks guys - I've managed to ad(d) those lines and block the ads but the pages are still ridiculously infuriating slow to load

I would give the editing a go myself but last time I tried anything like that I had to buy a new computer.

It is painfully slow though isn't it.

Brilliant!

cheers to Jules and Spoogehead

While the page is loading, take a look at the status bar in the bottom left corner of the browser window and see if it says things like "Waiting for hosting.adjug.com" or "(7 items remaining) Downloading from http://www.fiso.co.uk... If it says "Waiting for hosting.adjug.com" then you know the changes you made to the HOSTS file haven't actually worked properly. If it says something else then jot it down and post it here and it might give us a clue as to what the problem is.

It may be to do with how your browser handles Temporary Internet Files.

Does your browser clear the Temporary Internet Files each time it closes? In Internet Explorer you'd find that option under Tools > Internet Options > Advanced tab and quite a long way down the list in the Security section you want the try unticking the box that says "Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed"

In Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options and on the General tab in the Browsing History section, make sure the checkbox "Delete browsing history on exit" isn't ticked. Click the Settings button in the Browsing History section and change the option for "Check for newer versions of stored pages" to be Automatically. While you're there, set your "Disk space to use" to be 100Mb.

Again, you'll have to restart your browser for the changes to take effect.

Don't think I've got one of those bars, can't seeing anything saying anything anywhere, nothing at all bottom left.

Worked like a charm. Thanks for the tips.

It's easy to try and won't harm your computer. An anti-virus scanner might flag it up as suspicious, and may even change it back, but it's a tool that I use as a web developer sometimes when testing a site. IT administrators could use the same technique to block certain websites (although they'd actually do it through a proxy server that would do the same thing rather than set it up per individual machine) and you can use it to play tricks on people too (such as pointing google.com to the IP Address of an adult website - not that I did that on one of the university computers once !).

So, make a copy of the original HOSTS file and then you can play to your hearts content with the knowledge that you can easily put it back again.

Do you use Internet Explorer? If so, check the status bar is enabled by clicking on Tools > Toolbars and if the Status Bar is not ticked, click it to turn it on. The status bar will only say something while the page is loading, otherwise it may just say "Done". When you mouse over links, the status bar should show you the link address so that you can see where it will go before you click it.

thanks, done all that and the bar usually show "Waiting for.... http....fiso....." etc

Just a thought - before people stop adjug.com in this way, you might like to wait for Admin to comment as you may be cutting off an important revenue stream for FISO. It's possible adjug records the advertising shown on the banners in FISO and revenue may be generated from those adverts. If you block adjug you may be costing FISO money as it may not be recording information about the adverts shown.

Admin, can you clarify?

Both hosting.adjug.com and marketing.adjug.com appear to be unreachable, suggesting their servers may be down.

I will gladly remove the said extra lines once admin confirms that adjug have fixed the problem, but in the meantime, a saving of about 3-4 seconds per pageload on a site where I regularly load several hundred pages a day is significant enough for me to do it.

Simples.Didn't even have to open the link.It's lightning fast now as it was taking up to a minute to open pages and only marginally faster on other browsers.Hopefully it doesn't affect Fiso revenues or another solution can be found.

On a side note to those who use firefox type about:config, and edit the settings

network.http.pipelining: Change this to true.

network.http.proxy.pipelining: Change this to true.

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests: Change this to 8.

Now search for max-connections and you should see:

network.http.max-connections: Change this to 96.

network.http.max-connections-per-server: Change this to 32.

You Will notice the difference

Done this, it is quicker but still slow.

I can't find a file called "hosts".

very interesting post jules

i've seen this happen recently with quite a few sites presumably for the same reason.

i think some of the fantasy footy sites have been particularly bad. surprisingly the clever.tv ones have been worse than the gfm ones

the level of adds must make the mega multi entrantas lives a misery, i'm just glad i reduced my ytm entry and note the irish boys seem to have done the same!

i probably won't do anything about it as i don't like hacking about but your point is very interesting from a general point of view.

andy

Done and made Fiso quicker.

Shame it has mad the Cancer Fantasy football website unreadable.

thats why i don't like hacking about ashers

will just use fiso a bit less.

andy

Why is it so slow? Is it because of the adjug thing? or is there too many people online?.....if so can some of you bustards log off

I don't really know what all the blocking business is about so I'll just keep waiting 2-3 minutes for the page to load up

Just tried to look at their site and all the formatting is up the creek. Looks terrible, all over the place. Not sure it's supposed to look so text like - probably a bad website update.

Just tried again before posting this message and it now looks fine. Check again Ashers.

Tried the Host thing.
Checked all the internet options suggested.
Page is still taking forever to load
I just get waiting for fiso.co.uk and then the url of the thread i'm trying to open

Any other ideas?

Looks fine now

Did you close and restart your browser?

To check the change has worked successfully ...

Open up a command window (Start Menu->All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt)
Type the following commands:

ping -n 1 hosting.adjug.com
ping -n 1 tracking.adjug.com

You should see the following:
ping -n 1 hosting.adjug.com
Pinging hosting.adjug.com [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

ping -n 1 hosting.adjug.com
Pinging tracking.adjug.com [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

If you don't see 127.0.0.1 but 85.90.254.44 instead then your hosts file is not being read/found, check the file is in the correct location, check it is called "hosts" and not "hosts.txt" (notepad can add the file extension .txt to a saved file).

C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc

When Jules writes 'etc', there is a folder called 'etc'. In there you'll find the hosts file.

Cheers Guys.

Worked brilliantly btw Jules.

theres some clever people on this forum

thanks for the tips, no more ads for me