We have been experiencing very slow web page loading times on the MacBook (via Firefox). After reading lots on blogs and the like of people complaining, I found one note that struck a cord with me on talking about OpenDNS. The slowness was almost pin-able to DNS as all the waiting for data from x.com type stuff went by in a flash, after the huge pause was over.
So I did a side by side compare of loading a sub-page on Trade Me, on the old Window PC vs. the new MacBook. Using the same Wifi. The PC won hands down. In fact it finished before the Mac had started.
With it in hand I decided to see how the networks were different.
Long story short_-er-ish_, The Mac was getting IP & DNS settings from the router, and the PC had them manually configured. Applying manual setting to the MacBook, and hay presto… fast page loads. Yay!
So this is a case of the ‘auto-magic just works’ causing problems, as it wasn’t the best solution, but it did work mostly.