Unexplained Tor speed jump

Running Linux Mint 8, FF 3.5.8

Tried to search here before posting this, but "Tor" is too common and can not be part of a search, so please excuse if this subject exists. The posts found concerning Tor speed had the opposite problem to mine, namely, when using Tor there is sometimes a sustained jump in download speed to the maximum possible through my ISP (~60KB/s). IP check at checkip.dyndns.org, tor status at showmyip.com, and check.torproject.org all indicated secure Tor browsing.

Was running Noscript, Betterprivacy, and had Java and Javascript turned off. Was, however, using FF addon DownloadHelper. Do you think this is the culprit? Or was Tor just suddenly impossibly fast? Or ...

 

Hi Atanar,

What is the actual name and version number of your FF add-on "DownloadHelper", i.e. there is no such FF add-on at the Firefox add-on website? Did you mean Video DownloadHelper?

Also, if you just upgraded Tor to 0.2.1.23 or 0.2.1.24 - there was a huge client-side performance bug that was fixed. See:
Announcments about Tor, an anonymous Internet communication system (dated Mar 1, 2010) at:
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.network.onion-routing.announce/31

-- Tom

 

Using Tor v0.2.1.22, and yes, its Video Downloadhelper, version 4.7.1, but the question would apply to any add-on functioning while browsing with Torbutton.

I took a look at wireshark, but, whew! it may be too much for me -- that's a daunting manual and I get the feeling I would need to climb a few learning ladder steps just to be able to understand it.

Maybe that's what I should do, though