What a day. I hate Computers!

[Palustris]

As you know we have been having trouble with the Internet. ISP say they are sending it at normal spped. BT say the line is ok, but still it gets slower and slower as we go along. Ends up with being timed out on most sites or IE Cannot find the page  message. Grrrrr.
Asked in all sorts of places for suggestions. They range from emptying the Temp files to deleting the Cookies, both of which we have already done. Actually don't collect Cookies and Temp files are emptied on leaving IE.
Final attempt today. I have been advised to add the numbers for the DNS servers myself rather than relying on our machine to find them itself. This slowing down thing is possibly because we are not connection to these proxy servers properly. So after trying all day to find thse dratted numbers and how to add them to our machine I have finally done it. Whether it works or not remains to be seen I am not going to disconnect for the present as everything is working properly (Kiss fingers to Hubris). So fingers crossed for later on!
If it don't work then I will remove the numbers and give up on the Internet until we move house!
 

[Palustris]

So far so good. Either the nasty Email to the ISP has worked or the DNS numbers, but today we have a reasonable connection!

[ideasguy]

I sympathise with your plight, Eric.

When I was on dial-up, I experienced a few problems. In my case, part of the problem was spyware running unknown on my computer. When I cleaned that up, things improved.

Cookies:
These are totally misunderstood, in my opinion.
Some sites dont work unless you allow cookies, the main example being on-line Plant/Seed Suppliers and on-line Airline bookings  - anyone with a particular type of shopping cart.
Heres how that works. When you start to use their shopping cart, you may add an item to the basket, so youve actually created a record on a database on their server.
You browse through their catalog, and 5 minutes later add a second item to the basket.
In between times, over that 5 minutes, many other customers may have "added to basket".
So, how does their computer know its you who has returned, to add your second item?
They use cookies. Its a small packet of information, saved on your computer, which is transmitted each time you "add to basket" telling the server - "Hey, its me back again".

Its easy to see how that "Hey its me" transmission is abused, hence in the modern age we have adware, spyware and other wonderful things.

Thus, we have good cookies and evil cookies.

How to deal with that?

My preferred method:
I block cookies, then control which sites ARE allowed to set cookies.
To do that (Internet explorer):
On the Menu (top of browser screen) Click Tools Click Internet options.
Click Privacy
Move the slider bar up to High
Click Apply

That stops the baddies.
Now to allow the goodies:
Click Tools
Click Internet options.
Click Privacy
Click Sites
Copy (elsewhere) and paste a website address (URL) into the Address of website field
Click Allow
Add more sites as required.

You'll be caught out with this a few times.
Example. My daughter tried to book a flight on-line.
It failed to accept her booking.
After a bit of head scratching, I realised that it was failing because it wasnt permitted to set a cookie (on my computer)
I added the website to the Allow list, and all was fine.

My 15 year old grandson uses my computer, (very skilfully!) and I'm less terrifed now Ive this restriction in place.

RE:

If it don't work then I will remove the numbers and give up on the Internet until we move house!

Please tell me that's a joke   

[Palustris]

Sorry, should have expanded on the Cookies thing. Yes, we have set up the same system, iadvantages of having children who have IT qualifications    says the man who got a computer qualification over 25 years ago when they were BBC machines and such like.
Was half joking. My wife earns the cost of our (cheap) ISP by doing various surveys on line and so on. So, not bothering is really out of the question.
Did look at Sky as suggested kindly by Laurie, but apart from my dislike of the Company, their prices were beyond us. Satellite Broadband is 10 times what we pay now and on our income that is well out of reach.
By the way I have probably got another DVD of photgraphs ready for you. Found over 200 ones taken at shows, so some really lovely rare plants.

[ideasguy]

RE:

By the way I have probably got another DVD of photgraphs ready for you

That is exciting news 
That DVD will be very graciously accepted Eric. It will be nice to browse through the photos when I'm having a break.
Any with names will be added to the Master Database, and that will be a real treat for everbody.

P.S. I'll get you started with the WPG over the weekend, Eric