have you got link scanner enabled on AVG, this can really slow things down,  most people go the the AVG control panel and switch it off

Just a quick update.
The problem manifests itself at different times during the day.
I now have a support call in with Microsoft against IE8 and red x images having tried all their on-line advice.
Not yet tried my old Kubuntu machine - might get some time today.
AVG link scanner - haven't tried experimenting with this yet but I suspect it will make no difference.
With all matters such as this my attitude has always been "what has changed".  So far, the prime suspects are MS updates and now a slimmer possibility is PN performance.

Link scanner will make a tremendous difference, it completely mucked up my browsing,  pictures on a fast connection took minutes to load

I'm now writing this update from an old Toshiba Tecra 8100 runinng Kubuntu and Firefox. 3.0.11  The links in a previoos post of mine worked fine first time and quite quick especially the google ones.  The ebay ones were a little slowere but again fine.  Off to try disabling AVG scanner but I suspect it is not the answer.  After all nothing changed in that area

Just spotted this forum post
http://community.plus.net...php?topic=80473.msg655507
Could it be my problems are the same?  Now edging towards PN network and maybe DNS issues (not that I have a clue about such matters).

And another forum post that may be relevant
http://community.plus.net...ex.php/topic,67556.0.html
What happpened on the 26th August 2008 to put matters right?  Has PN got any logs which would give a hint?

Hi, can you try to load the pages/images with proxy?
https://www.megaproxy.com/freesurf/

Many thanks for your interest Rami.
I have done nothing today to tweak this IE8 Vista machine now.  I have only posted updates to the forum.  Amazingly though since posting the links I found plus a bit more googling to find out any more info on my problem (where I cam across one of PN threads previoysly posted) the situation has now improved - almost to the point of total success.  Off to try on the other VISTA machine.  Will keep monitoring and update this thread.  And wil investigate proxy if necessary.

Decided to use the proxy link before moving onto my second machine.  Yes, worked a treat using the same links in one of my early posts - just to compare like with like.  Now off to second machine.

Now on second VISTA machine and tried links in one of my original posts.  Same problems - images not loading.  Tried the proxy suggestion from same machine and yes they work a treat.  I am now confused.  I have 2 problem machines - although 1 is now much better.  Both are connecting wirelessly through the same router.  The one with the main problem i.e.this one I am posting from has a far better wireless connection than the first.  So I have ruled out possible slower connections between router and machines.  Now what can I do?
As an aside; when I raised my IE8 support call with Microsoft very early this morning I did so from first VISTA machine which is now working much better.  I have heard nothing back form MS and to be fair do not expect so until tomorrow.  They cant have been in to my machine without my knowledge and tweaked something?

Can you try to tweak your router MTU (Maximum Transmission Units) to 1400?

Well I could Rami, but it has been on 1492 for years following lots of advice from PN guys in the past.  Sorry to be repetative but I always try and stick by the old adage "look to see what has changed" and I have just checked router settings and they are as I expect and have withstood the re-boot I did yesterday to no avail.
I did try and see what PNs DNS servers performance was currently and they are all either remarkedly the same or I have only sighted a static image.  Have I got the right link I wonder?

It could be down to the Akamai issues as mentioned earlier in the thread. As per my comment here, we should be able to do something about this later on today dependent on the results of Dave's earlier work (posted at approx. 10:30 on the service status page).

Hope that helps,

Thanks for your interest orbrey.  I'll keep an eye out for any Akamai issue resolution.

In the meantime a quick update.  The issue is now intermittent although I seem to be able to replicate the problem almost at will.  If the images do show correctly and fast asking for a refresh usually confuses it enough to dither around and eventually show some pretty red cross boxes

As reported earlier I also have a call in with Microsoft and I am still in discussions with them although I suspect my lack of availability will extend any resolution on their part - if in fact it is down to them and not a performance issue.  They have asked me to report what the sitaution is in "SAFE" mode and it is roughly the same.  The have asked me to do a large number of regsvr32 commands on DLL files and I'm just awaiting a response to a couple of questions I have with them before proceeding.

Will keep you all updated.
And if you are not all bored to death by now, the attachment shows some screen-shots of the manifestation.

A quick update.  Last week Microsoft attempted to cure my problem.  I mentioned to the tech guy on the phone that I suspected I was also having speed problems with my ISP.  But he did not seem interested.  Why is iy that nobody can take an holistic view of IT issues? He clearly new his stuff within the confines of Windows and IE8 but that was it.  We did some fixes and I must admit things did improve - but I suspect it was when the network was perfoming just a lirtlle better - last Thursday evening.
One of the things we did was to remove all reference to Adobe Flash using an adobe tool and tyen re-install the latest version.  He told me that Adobe Flash also handles static images as well as things like i-player.  I had told him during the conversation that i-player was workeing fine and that all BBC web stuff was OK too.  I also mentioned to him that I was having no problems with an old laptop running Kubuntu and Firefox.  He then asked if I was running Firefox on my offending machine which I wasnt at the time.  I think he asked that so that he could then say it was Firefox fault.
As I say, he did improve matters but I think he just got lucky.  The same night and since there is no difference.  Very rarely get pictures from the google image page and the same in e-bay.  I'm living with it - but getting increasingly annoyed.  One day, I know PN will be back to acceptable speed and performance.  When that day arrives - I will return to the issue.  For now it would seem that there are just too many possibilities at the various layers and providers of the total service.  One day, we might just have one single provider of broadband/operating system and telecoms.  If John Lennon was still alive would he add another verse to his Imagine song? 

@boavon, the example screengrab you linked to in a previous post doesn't suggest a minfestation of the recent Akamai problems to me, especially on your account type.

Given the fact that the problem is evident on multiple machines the first thing I would do if you haven't done already (forgive me if you have) is to try an alternative modem/router.

I recognise that things seem to work OK some of the time but hardware problems/misconfiguration can be an odd breed at times.

At this side we could arrange for you to disconnect so that we could dial in as yourself and see if we can replicate the problem however if I'm honest I'm quietly confident we wouldn't be able to.