This is a question I often ask myself. There are many tricks and tips to improve the performance of any computer, but what is often overlooked is that it isn’t the computer that is slow, and it’s not even the fault with the Internet Provider - sometimes it is the website that is being accessed.
Case in point, I recently got an email from my bank telling me that I have a new monthly statement that I can access. So I jumped in Safari and clicked on my favorite link to load up the bank website. And it hung while trying to open the website. This sometimes happens with different websites. When I refresh the page that is hung, it often starts up immediately - but not always. Doing a speedtest at the time shows that I have full speed available.
Similarly, I wanted to download a 25MB PDF file from a website to my computer. The download progress bar showed very little activity, and the time remaining showed almost an hour. A speedtest showed that my download speed was 41 Mbps (typical for my IP), so a 25MB file (equivalent to about 200 Mbits) should take about 5 seconds. Restarting the download didn’t help. That’s not a computer problem. That’s a web server problem - at their end. In another case, a 161MB file from a different website downloaded in less than 20 seconds which calculated to a 28 second download time.
Aside from a website problem, there was a time when my Internet was iffy at best, and almost always a speedtest showed half or less than what it should be. This turned out to be a faulty Wi-Fi mesh network system that was three years old. Replacing mesh network with a new one returned my Internet to normal.
So just because your Internet experience isn’t what you would like it to be, a way to determine if it is your computer is to do a performance test on the computer first.
Geekbench 5 (https://www.geekbench.com) is a useful app for measuring the CPU performance. There is a free version, but the full version is available in the App Store. The Geekbench website provides a handy reference chart of what score to expect for your computer. I ran the trial version on my M1 Mini, and I am very impressed with the app. It performs both a single core and a multi core test and recognized my computer type automatically. It allows for saving the test (in a free account with Geekbench) as a baseline which can be used to compare future tests against. You can also compare your computer test against others with the same computer type. People are reporting performance tests almost hourly.
CleanMyMac X (https://cleanmymac.macpaw.com) is the simplest way to clean out the junk from your computer. It is not free, but for me the price is worth the peace of mind. It also performs scans for viruses, adware, malware, and spyware. It is also available in the App Store.
John R Carter, Jr.