by Jason Snell
‘The Mystery of the Slow Downloads’
I love a good mystery story, especially when there’s a satisfying end. And that’s what Cabel Sasser of Panic Software has written:
A few months ago, a complaint started popping up from users downloading or updating our apps: “Geez, your downloads are really slow!” …We started noticing it ourselves when we were working from home. When we’d come in to the office, transfers were lightning fast. But at home, it was really, seriously getting hard to get any work done remotely at all.
Because software developers are ingenious and curious people, Panic wrote a test tool, analyzed the data, and discovered the source of the problem. What happened next, as the saying goes, will surprise you.