(grin!) even slow American Internet will be faster than what is available here in New Zealand, I reckon...
Now. As predicted, The Poison Elf was at his place of worship doing his libations. And he was full of the Spirit.
However, he had some sound advice: don’t take it as a “given” that it’s not a hardware problem. It could be. you have one machine that works the way you like, and one that doesn’t. Starting with the screen and working your way back, swap components and see if the problem moves. Use that to isolate where to look next.
(I should have thought of that — it’s obvious enough!)
Some sites get slower than others.
Sometimes the FR servers start to choke a little, and sometimes the entire internet will hang up some.
I think in some cases it is denial of service attacks from abroad.