Is A&A a lower latency and more reliable alternative to Virgin Media?

[Adsibob]

I’ve had apples for decades. Never had a virus. Never used anti virus software. Now malware... that’s a different beast.

[Temp]

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/12/21134681/mac-pc-virus-malware-malwarebytes

 

Think your Apple product is safe from malware? That only people using Windows machines have to take precautions? According to cybersecurity software company Malwarebytes’ latest State of Malware report, it’s time to think again.

The amount of malware on Macs is outpacing PCs for the first time ever, and your complacency could be your worst enemy.

“People need to understand that they’re not safe just because they’re using a Mac,” Thomas Reed, Malwarebytes’ director of Mac and mobile and contributor to the report, told Recode.

Windows machines still dominate the market share and tend to have more security vulnerabilities, which has for years made them the bigger and easier target for hackers. But as Apple’s computers have grown in popularity, hackers appear to be focusing more of their attention on the versions of macOS that power them. Malwarebytes said there was a 400 percent increase in threats on Mac devices from 2018 to 2019, and found an average of 11 threats per Mac devices, which about twice the 5.8 average on Windows.

 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

12 hours ago, Adsibob said:

Any idea how to get rid of malware that bypasses Google when internet searching even though Google is selected as the default search engine. I have tried re-inputting the setting, but it just uses this awful search engine that is so inferior to google. 

 

 

I would be more concerned that something has control of my PC or web browser than the inferiority of the impostor search engine.

 

Something might have hacked your network routing at a lower level than the web browser. I would install the Microsoft Edge browser for mac to see if the problem goes away.

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, epsilonGreedy said:

I would install the Microsoft Edge browser for mac to see if the problem goes away.

Then every little thing that goes wrong with the users life, be it a late delivery, divorce, cold coffee etc, can be squarely blamed on Microsoft, for ever.

[epsilonGreedy]

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Then every little thing that goes wrong with the users life, be it a late delivery, divorce, cold coffee etc, can be squarely blamed on Microsoft, for ever.

 

 

Microsoft Edge contains the Chrome web page rendering engine so there is little of Microsoft's own stuff in Edge. MIcrosoft threw in the towel when it gave up on Explorer and abandoned plans to develop its own web browser.

[joth]

20 hours ago, Adsibob said:

I did a factory reset of my router (Rather than just an "unplug it at the mains for 10 sec") and this has fixed the ethernet cables not working.

I've also discovered that on my wife's user account on our mac, she has a lot of malware. I tried to remove it but struggled. So I wonder if that is in some way affecting browsing speed. It would make sense if the browser issue was only on her user account, but it's on both.

Once I fix the malware, I think the next step will be to buy a better router, rather than to switch to A&A or Zen. Interested to understand why Virgin can offer speeds that are so much faster than Zen or A&A. 

 

I think you have to use the Virgin Meida router, but it is more reliable if you switch it to "Modem Mode" and put your own IP router & wifi APs behind it.

There are reports it is slower in modem mode though, I've not been able to prove this or otherwise.

Either way, it's a piece of rubbish and runs at an absurdly hot temperature for what it's doing.

 

I find VM have very variable latency and uplink speeds in particular. Different times of day, it's wildly different performance.  I've never had that on any Openreach wholesale based product.

 

 

[Adsibob]

23 minutes ago, joth said:

I think you have to use the Virgin Meida router, but it is more reliable if you switch it to "Modem Mode" and put your own IP router & wifi APs behind it.

Thanks @joth. What router/APs do you recommend? Ideally I need something with more than 4 ethernet ports, as I will likely want to hard wire about 6 devices. Or would I just use a splitter for that?

[joth]

2 hours ago, Adsibob said:

Thanks @joth. What router/APs do you recommend? Ideally I need something with more than 4 ethernet ports, as I will likely want to hard wire about 6 devices. Or would I just use a splitter for that?

I'm using Unifi USG, their newer Dreammachine is pretty good for an entry level "prosumer" product. There's definitely downsides of their gear though, a search on here for Unifi might surface some of that.

 

For a less technically demanding but robust consumer product, I have a lot of colleagues recommending TP-Link "Deco" mesh network products. Something like the Deco P9 3-pack is a good starting point, it has 2 gigabit eithernet ports plus  integrated mains power line adapter in each AP, and creates a whole home mesh wifi network.

Increasing number of wired LAN ports is just a case of plugging in an gigabit unmanaged switch like Netgear GS108UK

 

Edited June 22, 2021 by joth