Monthly Archives: October 2019

There’s no family of phones that make quite the splash like iPhones when a new one arrives. These days it’s the iPhone 11 that’s come onto the scene with a whole lot of fanfare, and for good reason. It’s quickly becoming regarded as a big step up from its predecessor, and not surprisingly they’re being snapped up big time by consumers who don’t mind the somewhat pricey tags attached to them. The tech giants out there in Mountain View, CA truly don’t ever rest on their laurels, and the iPhone 11 is a testament to that.

Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re thinking it’s likely that every quality Canadian web hosting provider is going to have plenty of customers who are iPhone faithful. We’re no exception there and we have more than a few of them here ourselves. If you’re going to shell out the big bucks for the newest iPhone then you’ll be expecting a superior product.

Now to be clear we’re not suggesting the iPhone 11 isn’t one, but it is true that – as is the case with any tech product – there’s often a few kinks that need to be worked out. These issues aren’t so major that they’ll be any type of deal breaker that will have an owner second guessing their decision to buy the newest iPhone, but they’re significant enough that any ‘fix’ for them will likely be most welcome.

So that’s what we’ll have for you here today, an overview of common problems with the iPhone 11 Pro and very straightforward ways of addressing them.

Eventful OS

It’s true that the number of reported issues with iOS 13 makes up quite a list. In response to this Apple has released a series of updates to respond to them, offering fixes to mitigate issues with the hardware. Here are a few initial iPhone 11 problems we’ve discovered around all three versions of the new phone so far and some tips on how to fix them.

Problem & Fix 1: Wireless Charging

This issue is definitely the most widespread of all, so it gets top spot on our list. The most common issue here is when an iPhone 11 is laid on a Qi wireless charger, your new device will not actually charge, despite it clearly recognizing its interaction with the charger. Some people have also claimed that their device becomes very hot to the touch, even while not charging on the pad.

There is something of a consensus that this bug first surfaced after installing various iterations of iOS 13, and that may mean the blame is more with the software than the functionality of the device itself.

Possible Fix:

A straightforward suggestion is the only one to offer here – update your iPhone’s OS with newly released versions, with Apple continuing to issuing fixes for various problems. Note as well that for some user as power-off reset/restart resolved this problem for them

• Press and release volume up
• Press and release volume down
• Hold the power button and wait until the Apple logo appears

Problem & Fix 2: Activation Issues

No matter what type of device it is, activation issues are fairly standard when you try to get a new phone up and running at first. So not surprisingly, the iPhone 11 is no exception.

Possible Fixes:

Start by ensuring that all systems are up and running by checking Apple’s System Status page. Seeing anything that is not toggled in green means you need to wait until all systems are up, and then try again. If all are green and you’re still unable to proceed with the full activation, check that your phone has a SIM card inserted. Switching the SIM card from your old phone into your new one is option number one. If you continue to get a “No SIM” or “Invalid SIM” error message, despite having just inserted the SIM card and certain its there, Apple recommends doing the following:

• Confirm with your mobile service provider that your plan is operational
• Update your handset to the latest iOS version and restart
• Go to Settings > General > About. If an update exists, you’ll see a prompt to select OK or Update. Choose it and see to it the update completes in full
• Remove the SIM card from the tray and then place it there again, also ensuring the tray closes completely
• Confirm that the SIM card is operational, by trying a different one. You can ask your carrier to test your phone with a different card. If it’s found that your current one is defective, they will almost certainly provide a function one for you at no cost

Problem & Fix 3: Volume, Audio & Sound Issues

A good many new iPhone 11 owners are also reporting that there’s issues with the volume and audio on their phones. While we haven’t been able to dig up and explanation for that yet it’s not to say this isn’t something that an OS update can remedy. It likely can, but you can also try these solutions on your own in advance and see if they work for you.

Possible Fixes:

• Remove the SIM card from your phone, and then re-insert it. This problem can be caused by a SIM card that’s sitting improperly in the SIM card tray
• Turn off Bluetooth and then compare the audio quality with or without it active. If it improves, have Bluetooth turned off when making or taking calls.
• Check to see that your microphone is clean, clear, and unobstructed. These things can get filled with dust and grit fairly easily, and the blockage prevents the mic element from picking up sound
• If the above steps are ineffective, clear your phone’s cache memory by restarting it
• Do a hard factory reset (Settings > General > Reset). If you’re going to go this route, however, be sure to back up your data first

Problem & Fix 4: Overheating

This is the surprising one of the bunch, and especially considering the huge issues that were seen with Samsung’s Galaxy S7 a few years back. There have been plenty of reports about iPhone 11 units becoming seriously hot to the touch, along with concerns about the effect on the long term battery life of their new handset. If yours is giving you grief that way too, here’s what’s recommended. We’ll state first that if your phone is extremely hot then you should go to your provider and make them aware of the situation.

Possible fixes:

• Remove your phone from its case. Some inexpensive phone cases actually block the heat dispersal points on the device and promote it overheating as a result
• Avoid leaving your handset in a car or exposed to hot temperatures for extended periods of time
• Make note of any games or apps that cause your phone to overheat
• Try going into Airplane Mode for a while. Go into the Control Center and tap the plane icon to shut off all GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular signals. Monitor your phone to see if it cools down as a result of doing this
• Observe if it is charging your device that causes it to overheat. If it overheats and stays hot to the touch following charging, then you must take it to your retailer and ask that the issue be looked into without delay

Should none of the above steps work, you’re encouraged to contact Apple tech support or make an appointment with the Genius Bar.

It’s likely fair to say that people who are loyal to Macs are more fervently that way than their opposites, meaning people who are PC. Whether that has anything to do with Apple’s advertising campaign of 10 years ago or so where Mac was a young, hip, and casual and PC was older, inflexible, and suit n’ tie guy all the way. But the truth of the matter is for those with certain prerogatives when it comes to their computing device – especially for creative work – a Mac is the only way to go much of the time.

It’s for this reason and the ongoing popularity of the iMac and MacBook that today’s subject is worthy of some attention. There’s been a pronounced rise in the number of phishing attacks against Macs, especially in recent years. Here at 4GoodHosting, we can assume that many of you are Mac devotees as well, and that’s why as a leading Canadian web hosting provider we can relate to how anything that puts you more up to speed on what might be threatening your Mac is going to be quite welcome.

So what’s this all about, and what’s the need-to-know here and what’s just noise? We’ll do our best to lay it all out for you here today.

The Mac Myth of Malware Immunity

That Macs are immune to malware is a myth, but it’s certainly a popular one. It is true that the risk of attack for Apple’s computers is significantly less than for Windows computers, but they can still be compromised and infected. Look no further than the Zoom infection that hit up many users earlier this year, and something that did get quite a bit of coverage.

This is confirmed with a report a few months back from antivirus firm Kaspersky, which published a report claiming that phishing attacks on Mac users could double from their 2018 rates by the end of this year. That’s going to be a cause for concern for anyone using a Mac.

The report states that in the first half of 2019, Kaspersky software detected some 6 million or so phishing attacks targeted at Mac users, with 1.6 million attacking the Apple brand name by June 2019.

For those of you might be unfamiliar with what a phishing attack is, it’s where a malicious actor attempts to trick you into giving away sensitive information. For example, they might send you an email masquerading as an Apple message and asking for your Apple ID login info. If obtained, this info is then used to make fraudulent purchases.

2015 MacBook pro – Preferable to a 2019?

As much as that doesn’t makes sense – maybe so!

The number of phishing attacks taking aim at Macs in 2015 numbered 852,293, based on Kaspersky’s software. That rose 86% to 1.5 million in 2016, then exploded up to 4 million by 2017. There were 7.3 million attacks in 2018, and the company is reporting 5,932,195 attacks so far in 2019. Should this growth continue at its current rate, there could be over 16 million Macs targeted by the end of this year, and that would more than double the 2018 number.

Apple is offering a number of tips on how to avoid being victimized by phishing attacks. The most important thing for you to understand is this:

• Apple will NEVER ask for your Apple ID password or verification code in order to provide support, and launching browser pop-up windows warning you that your Mac is infected is also something they NEVER do. If you get an unsolicited phone call from someone claiming to be from Apple, hang up and contact Apple directly.

There is, surprisingly, some good news in this. The number of circulating malicious files that target Mac users and the number of times Kaspersky products detected malware and potentially unwanted software on Macs seems to be declining in 2019 compared to 2018. The belief is that this is a reflection of how these interests are refocusing their Mac efforts on phishing rather than on viruses and other malware files.

Ample Annoying Adware

Kaspersky’s report explains further that although both the number of malware attacks and the number of affected users have been growing annually since 2012, the number of affected users actually dropped noticeably from around 255,000 to 87,000 in 2018.

The belief is that the era of explosive growth with Mac-focused malware seems to be behind us, and the decline in the activity of cybercriminals on this platform is a slow but definitely discernible trend.

It’s also worth noting that instead of full-fledged viruses, most of the Mac malware coming around these days is Adware – malicious files that run ads in as many places on your Mac as possible. Why this is something of a grey area, but it may be primarily because much less effort is needed than to create a virus.

To their credit, Apple is seeing this trend and making redirected efforts to protect its customers. We should note as well that this is only part of the overall picture with Mac OS security concerns. Attacks on Mac users who were running different antivirus apps – or none at all – didn’t enter the picture. For this reason it’s safe to assume that the total number of these kinds of phishing attacks is likely higher.

Antivirus Up – Now

We’ll conclude here with proving some solid if unspectacular advice; if you haven’t installed an antivirus app on your Mac, it’s high time you did. And, like anything, it’s a good idea to buy one of the pricier ones because it’s a product like most others in that you get what you pay for.

If you’re looking to protect your Mac, you should install an antivirus app. We’ve rounded up your best options to help remove the guesswork in keeping you safe on your Mac. Macworld is a very reputable source for information related to Apple products, and their #1 choice for antivirus software for Mac is Sophos Home Premium.

Internet privacy is one of the hottest of the hot button issues in the digital world these days, and it has been for quite some time. There’s so many different ones that are still discusses at length, and for good reason. News over recent years has indicated the surprising extent to which people’s private and other information has been exposed. There are ongoing efforts to counter this trend, but as is the case with many things it takes time to put effective measures in place.

Browser fingerprinting is one of them, and when one digs deeper into this particular issue it’s fairly common to have greater concerns about it. Here at 4GoodHosting, we are one of the many reputable Canadian web hosting providers who see the ‘insecurity’ of the World Wide Web to be as big a problem as it really is. As such we choose to make people informed of what they can do to protect themselves against the prying eyes that they likely have no idea are watching their moves online.

So what’s at issue here, how concerned should you be, and what can people do to be proactive in defending themselves against browser fingerprinting. Let’s look at all of this today.

Pervasive Peeping

A good number of people who use VPN services to hide their IP address and location may believe that by doing so they don’t have to worry about their browsing privacy being violated. This is the best place for us to start here, because that’s simply not true. With browser fingerprinting you can be identified and tracked.

One thing there’s no getting around is that every time you go online, your browsing device then provides highly specific information about your operating system, settings, and even hardware, to the site you’re visiting. This in itself is perfectly normal, and ideally shouldn’t be any cause for concern.

However, when this information is used to identify and track you online then you’ve experienced browser fingerprinting, and unfortunately many unique details and preferences can be exposed through your browser.

Once a sufficient amount of information has been collected, you are now regarded as having a ‘fingerprint’ for tracking and information purposes.

The sum total of these outputs can be used to render a unique “fingerprint” for tracking and identification purposes. What’s revealed as part of your fingerprint? Good question, and it’s quite a list:

• User agent header
• Accept header
• Connection header
• Encoding header
• Language header
• Plugins list
• Platform
• Cookie preferences (allowed or not)
• Do-Not-Track preferences (yes, no, or not communicated)
• User’s time zone
• Screen resolution and its color depth
• Local storage use specs
• Session storage use specs
• Picture rendered with the HTML Canvas element
• Picture rendered with WebGL
• Identifying and listing of any AdBlock software
• List of fonts

Extent of Browser Fingerprinting Accuracy

Browser fingerprinting may be a tool to identify and track people as they browse the web, but it’s certainly not the first of them and it likely won’t be the last. There has been all sorts of talk in the news that there are many different entities – ranging from corporate and government ones – that have an interest in monitoring internet browsing tendencies and haven’t been reserved in the slightest about acting on it.

The most conspicuous ones are advertisers and marketers who find this technique useful for acquiring more detailed data on users, with increased advertising revenue being what’s at stake. Alternately, some websites use browser fingerprinting to indicate potential fraud, so it’s true that not every variation of browser fingerprinting is ill-conceived

Test Websites for Browser Fingerprinting

It’s fair to say, however, that you should be doing what you can to prevent your from being yet another information mine for those employing browser fingerprinting. Fortunately, there are some online resources you can use to determine the information that is being revealed by your browser.

The best one in our opinion is www.deviceinfo.me.

In addition, you may also want to try websites that make browser data known and also assess a ‘uniqueness’ score calculated via your variables in comparison to their database of browsers.

Panopticlick is a good one we’ve been introduced to, and amiunique.org is said to also be a good resource. Amiunique, however, is open source and provides more information and updated fingerprinting techniques, including webGL and canvas.

The question will of course be how accurate are these sites. The answer is that, for the most part, they’re only somewhat accurate. Go ahead and make use of them, but don’t take their findings to be absolute truths and a thorough representation of what may be made available through your browser.

Without going into extensive detail, browser fingerprinting test websites like the ones shared above are good for revealing the unique information and values that can be rendered from your browser. Beyond that, however, trying to beat the test by achieving a low ‘uniqueness’ score may be a waste of time by and large.

Mitigating your Browser Fingerprint

Browser fingerprinting is a very complex and evolving issue. One interesting more recent revelation is that there’s nothing you can do to mitigate some fingerprinting attacks on smartphones. That said, here are ways to mitigate your browser fingerprint:

1. Modifications and Tweaks to the Browser

Sometimes there are different options for tweaks and modifications to mitigate browser fingerprinting. For Firefox, you can get started with this by typing about:config into the URL bar of your browser, hit enter, agree to “accept the risk” and make the following changes:

• resistFingerprinting (change to true)
• disabled (change to true)
• peerconnection.enabled (change to false)
• enabled (change to false)
• firstparty.isolate (change to true)

We will mention as well Brave browser is a good option for those wanting a simple, privacy-focused browser that blocks tracking by default and still supports Chrome extensions. Brave also allows you to enable fingerprinting protection, which is under the Brave Shields settings:

2. Browser Extensions and Add-ons

There are a number of different browser extensions and add-ons that you may find useful. Here are some of them:

• Canvasblocker by kkapsner
• Trace by AbsoluteDouble
• Chameleon by sereneblue

3. Use of Virtual Machines

Another option is to run different virtual machines, making it so that you’re able to run different operating systems on your host computer. VirtualBox is FOSS and offers an easy way to run different Linux VMs for more privacy and security. There are many different video tutorials online, depending on your operating system and the VM OS you are looking to use.

Virtual machines offer numerous advantages in terms of privacy and security, while also protecting your host machine. If the VM iscompromised, simply delete it and create a new one. Plus, different VMs can be used for different purposes.

4. Avoid Browsing with a Smartphone

The reality is that every ‘smart’ device is a data collection tool for corporate entities (and their surveillance partners), and smartphones are especially vulnerable to browser fingerprinting. Most often they’re fingerprinted using internal sensors and there’s not much that can be done to prevent that. Attacks can be launched by any website you visit or any app you use on a vulnerable device without requiring any explicit confirmation or consent from you, and a fingerprint is usually generated in less than one second. Plus, the calibration fingerprint never changes, even after a factory reset.

It should be noted that Apple has apparently patched this attack vector with iOS 12.2, while Google and Android still have yet to take any action on it

 

It may be the name of a particularly scenic island off the Southern California coast, but Catalina is now also the name of the newest Mac OS that has recently arrived. Like any successful company they’re not ones to rest on their laurels at Apple, and as such these new and improved operating systems keep on coming. For most Mac owners that’s a good thing, and there’s a LOT of R&D efforts and budget directed towards determining what new wrinkles users will find most appealing.

Here at 4GoodHosting, we imagine that nearly every other quality Canadian web hosting provider is also going to be taking note of the new features seen with Mac OS Catalina. Considering that Macs are the computers of choice for people who employ their devices for creative purposes, we can go ahead and assume these development will appeal to enough of our customers that they’re definitely worthy of a blog post.

So let’s do that here today – have a look at the Top 5 New Features with Mac OS Catalina.

With its release, the new MacOS brings with it a laundry list of changes, including a host of new features, a few updated apps, and the demise of a beloved app. But among these features, five really stand out from the rest. Here are the five best features in MacOS Catalina.

1. Apple Music, Podcasts, and TV – Replacing iTunes

To be certain, there are a LOT of people who are none to pleased to have heard of iTunes’ coming demise. Whether or not that’s going to be problematic for you, the general consensus is that over time these users will also come to appreciate the appeal of what’s being introduced here with Catalina as it regards entertainment via the devices.

Beginning with Catalina, iTunes is will be replaced with Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Podcasts apps. And, in our opinion, if you’re open to new things you’ll quickly come to see how this is all a good thing.

The general consensus is that the Apple Music app is lightning fast and will provide users with a library of some 50 million songs, playlists, and music videos. Plus, Apple Music users will still have access to the iTunes music store. The Apple TV app will support 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos, and the over 100,000 iTunes movies and TV shows now available for rent or purchase is something that promises to go over VERY well with Mac Users who love entertainment on-demand.

Apple TV+ is their new original video subscription service, and podcast fans will love how the new Apple Podcasts app includes a catalog of over 700,000 shows. Go ahead and search for podcast episodes by host or discussion topic and you’ll like how machine learning gets you to your podcast of-choice that much more quickly.

2. 2^ND Screen support with new Sidecar App for iPads

Equally worth of the most fanfare here is MacOS Catalina’s second screen support for iPads – Sidecar. This new feature allows Mac users to utilize their iPads as a second screen with their Macs for any task where two displays are preferable. Sidecar can be incorporated in two different ways; dragging windows from your Mac to your iPad and using the pad just as you would any external monitor, or pairing your iPad with Apple Pencil to make file changes that are then reflected on the primary display seen on your Mac.

It will be possible for you to use Sidecar wired or wirelessly. Do note, though, that for the wireless version to work you must be within ten metres of your Mac. There is also support for Touch Bar provided the apps you’re using with Sidecar actually support Touch Bar.

Sidecar promises to be very popular with people who write extensively with their Mac and would prefer not to have to be referencing on the same display. Of course, there will be many other appeal points for it too. Which leads us to number 3 here..

3. 3. Using Sidecar to Use iPad as a Drawing Tablet

Another sure-to-appeal aspect of Sidecar will have a lot of promise for artists, designers, and illustrators. Once you connect your iPad with Sidecar, you can take your Apple Pencil and draw and annotate things directly on that iPad.

Needless to say, many people will be abandoning their Wacom tablets and enjoying the direct-source productivity made possible by Catalina OS and Sidecar in this way. The ability to directly edit creations with Photoshop or Illustrator without having to import a file to the device is something that’s definitely going to be well received.

4. Screen Time

Here’s the one new feature with Catalina that is bound to be getting top marks from parents. Managing the family’s screen time is made a lot easier now that the Screen Time app has become standard with a new MacOS. Catalina’s Screen Time lets users set limits for app accessibility and time usage across all of your Apple devices – not just your Mac.

Screen Time will also generate usage reports, and it also boasts a ‘ One More Minute’ feature that provides users with a small amount of extra time to wrap things up if that’ what they need. It also allows users to set communication limits whereby you can control who is able to communicate with your kids, and when they can do that.

5. Updated and Improved Photos App

Apple has done well with the way they have revamped the Photos app in their newest operating system, Catalina. The most notable change is the way that it curates and features your best photos for you, doing so while removing poor-quality photos and duplicate shots at the same time without you having to do that manually on your own.

The Photos app also now generates much larger previews for photos, and machine learning helps your OS to be ‘smart’ about highlight important moments and memories. In addition, Live Photos and videos can now be auto-played while users scroll through their photo library.

We’ll conclude today by saying we’re aware we did this same type of commendation for Mojave OS not so long ago, but perhaps the fact that we’re doing it again (and will be in the future too likely) suggests that they do what they do exceptionally well down there in Mountain View, CA.

 

Bandwidth is a term that’s bandied about fairly regularly in the digital world these days, and not surprisingly given how not enough of it can mean the ‘lag’ that nearly everyone has major difficulty tolerating. Truth is a lot of people that might be decrying a lack of it may not actually know what it is, and are more simply regurgitating what they’ve heard others says when voicing similar complaints.

Sufficient bandwidth is an absolute necessity for providing reliable web hosting, and here at 4GoodHosting we’re the same as every quality web hosting provider in Canada in that the success of our business depends on having it to the extent that it’s needed for websites hosted with 4GH. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but what is worth mentioning is that – in addition to having a basic understanding of web hosting bandwidth – there are measures that webmasters can implement themselves to increase available bandwidth.

All of that to come here in today’s blog entry, but first let’s have a basic look at what exactly web hosting bandwidth is and why you certainly can’t do without it

What is Web Hosting Bandwidth

Nearly all of you will be familiar with what it’s like to be driving in rush-hour traffic, or even observing it from a distance. We can think of bandwidth like the lanes of a highway and each vehicle represents the web traffic moving towards your site. Too many of them on those roads leads to long delays and frustrated drivers, while at the opposite end too many lanes mean excessive infrastructure costs for the city and a network that’s difficult and expensive to maintain on the taxpayer dime.

To the point, web hosting bandwidth is the amount of data that a website can deliver to its visitors over a certain period of time. We can conceptualize bandwidth as the capacity or diameter of any one or more of the ‘tubes’ of the internet – high bandwidths mean stronger, larger connections that can deliver more traffic and data, while low bandwidths mean more restricted connections or networks that often result in backlogs and slower loading speeds.

Web hosting providers (like us) typically describe the bandwidth associated with a certain hosting plan by relaying it as how much data can be delivered in a specific period of time, and most commonly in terms of gigabytes or terabytes per-month. As to be expected, you’ll pay more for extra bandwidth, but it’s also pretty much the norm that if you need it it’s not an added expense you can realistically avoid.

Unless backlogs and slower loading speeds aren’t going to be problematic for your visitors.. right then.

How Much Bandwidth Will Do?

This of course depends on the size, structure, and nature of your website. The reality is that bandwidth is a less adjustable component of web hosting, and so it’s important to find a web hosting plan in Canada with just the right amount of it as you certainly don’t want to be paying for a higher-priced hosting package that is more than you need.

It might be appropriate to say it’s better to err on the side of caution here and that too much is better than too little. While that’s probably true, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t or can’t find a package that gives you exactly the amount of bandwidth you need.

The Formula

We certainly didn’t create it, but we’re happy to share this simple formula for calculating how much bandwidth your site consumes; take these factors:

• Average number of visitors each day
• Average size of a page on your website, in kilobytes
• Average number of pages viewed by each visitor
• 31 days in a month

And multiply them all together.

That number will be the amount of bandwidth you can expect to approximately consume each month, in kilobytes (divide by 1,000,000 to calculate gigabytes). If your intention is to have people downloading files from your site, you’ll also want to multiply the average daily number of downloads and the average file size and add that number to your total.

It’s also a good idea to multiply your bandwidth estimate by roughly 1.5 to give yourself some flexibility with these projections.

Unlimited Bandwidth?

Not surprisingly, global internet traffic is reported to be increasing by roughly 22% each year. This growth is far outpacing the ability of telecommunications and internet service providers to supply the amounts of bandwidth required for many sites to retain their status quo when it comes to website performance. In response we’re seeing increased numbers of packages coming advertised as offering unlimited bandwidth.

That’s going to be misleading like that, as it’s not really unlimited. A better term here would be unmetered. Generally speaking, it’s only unlimited if every site hosted in that shared hosting arrangement is operating within their established bounds. We won’t go any longer, but just be wary of any such offer for unlimited bandwidth.

What Makes Bandwidth Important for a Website?

We can create an analogy here between bandwidth and a pair of shoes. Even Usain Bolt won’t be streaking down the track effectively if his cleats are several sizes too small. But in more literal performance terms, bandwidth is instrumental to your site’s speed and overall performance. You want it to be ‘firing on all cylinders’ as the expression goes, and having enough bandwidth is absolutely essential if your site is to be doing that.

First and foremost with all of this is page load speed. Web browsing individuals are impatient, so enough said about that. Insufficient bandwidth = poor page load speeds. Dynamic content needs more bandwidth too, and it’s a big part of why VPS hosting is increasingly popular these days

Is it Possible to Increase Bandwidth?

It is, and the primary way to do so is by conserving it. What we mean by this is reducing your site’s bandwidth usage. Here’s the most common ways of increasing available bandwidth for a website:

• Look for external sources or storage for images and videos (or optimize image files for web)
• Enable compression for HTTP, CSS, and JavaScript
• Implement caching and a content delivery network to store static content on servers closest to your audience
• Outsource RSS feeds to third-party applications or plugins

Alternately, you can – as mentioned – consider moving to a VPS hosting package.

Most well-made and well-situated websites backed by solid web hosting can expect to see 10% to 20% more traffic each month. Given this likelihood, even those of you are absolutely content with the amount of bandwidth available to you may find yourself needing more of it in the not too distant future.