solution- why is facebook slow lately in Malaysia

If you are having slowness accessing facebook recently, this temporary solution might help you solve the speed problem.

Why is Facebook so slow lately in Malaysia?

This is because Japan Earthquake that took down the Pacific Cable and one of the hop servers at Hong Kong Internet Exchange Data Center and triggered the technical problem, the submarine telecommunications cable system has been affected by the disaster.

Somehow, a temporary solution suggested from a Malay Forum (HeHeHunter.net) that re-route your Facebook connection. They discovered a proxy server [203.106.85.66] (Akamai) hosted locally in Malaysia. This solution FORCE your computer to use the IP address to access Facebook.com. It’s work for many malaysia people and this solution is viral spread on Facebook.

We decided to test this temporary solution and come out an experiment for better understanding.

How does it work actually?

Solution (Experiment)

This temporary solution really can fix the speed slowness problem with Facebook. Here are the steps :

1. Open your notepad.exe (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Notepad)
   
   
   
2. Copy “C:\windows\System32\drivers\etc” and paste on your Window Explorer Address bar, then enter, it will open the “etc” folder location.
   
   
    
   
   
   OR
   Manually go to find out the “etc” folder location from this directory ”C:\windows\System32\drivers\etc”.

   

3. Next, use your mouse click the file named “hosts” in etc folder and drag into your notepad program.
4. Add in the following 2 sentence at the below
   203.106.85.66   www.facebook.com
   203.106.85.66   facebook.com
   
5. Then save. (File -> Save) or (Keyboard : Ctrl + S)
6. Open your browser, key in www.facebook.com.
7. Enjoy back the normal or even superfast speed!~

Speed Testing (Before and After) :

Go to your computer window –  Start –> Run –> type “cmd” Then type  in “ping www.facebook.com”.

Once switched, the Facebook loading speed back to normal, it’s fast! The ping time Before is average 363ms, After is average 17ms.

Why this work for me?
My facebook loading speed really become faster!

With this change, the routers route network base on the best effort and Facebook DNS server will point to the IP of the server that is available.  It is always faster and closer router to go to our  local server than outside malaysia.

Mm.. Is it secure enough..?

For your information, 203.106.85.66 is a main data centre of TM server in Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

Here is the information : http://whois.domaintools.com/203.106.85.66

• Our biggest concern is how do we know that server belongs to Facebook actually? Is there any announcement about this solution from Facebook Official side?
  As mentioned, we’re still wondering whether that IP is actually the server by local Facebook Office or not. If it is confirmed belong to Facebook server then should be okay, but if you’re not confirm it yet, then just try it at your own risk.

1. What is this server is doing here?
It’s a Facebook Mobile Server?
Don’t believe me? Try to add :

203.106.85.66 m.facebook.com
203.106.85.66 touch.facebook.com

to your hosts file.
Then you will see mobile/touch version of Facebook is loading.

2. Why does it point to Akamai Technologies?
This is because Facebook want to have a server in Malaysia to cater m.facebook.com users. Facebook leased that IP from the Data Center in Malaysia because in order to get a server co-location in Malaysia, they have to obtain an IP from the service provider, in this case, TM and Akamai.

3. Will you lose your accounts?
Until now, did the server ask for your Login Credentials? No right?

4. Why the hell https or SSL is not working?
This server is actually created to cater Facebook mobile users.
In your mobile, do you use https?
You will get SSL error because there are no SSL for facebook mobile.

Actually that server is for mobile version of Facebook: http://m.facebook.com

Security concern :

While many facebook friends and readers thank us for the tip to make Facebook loads A LOT faster, but there are still some readers have raised security concerns about using unknown and unverified server to access Facebook account.

The information we found out about the IP address [203.106.85.66] is that it is a AkamaiGHost (Akamai’s HTTP Acceleration service), which is designed to serve as a “geographically co-located caching server” for a website.

From our finding on Wikipedia Website (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies), one of Akamai Technologies customers is Facebook.

Akamai? What is that?

Actually this IP (203.106.85.66) is Facebook “static.ak.fbcdn.net” for Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

For your information :
“ak” in the URL means, it means “Akamai”.
“cdn” means “Content Delivery Network”.
In long form is “static akamai facebook Content Delivery Network”.

If we’re not mistaken, Facebook uses Akamai Edge Routing Server (content distribution network with edges close to the user).

For me, I think it’s safe to use this IP because it’s Cyberjaya’s static.ak.fbcdn.net.
True or not? Depends on you.

But you are still recommended to turn on  Facebook Secured Connection (HTTPS) for additional protection.

Other Problem (Windows 7 or Vista) :

For Windows 7 or Vista user, if you are getting errors,
go to Start –> Control Panel –> User Accounts,
Then click Change User Account Control Settings,
Set to Never Notify.

Additional Guidance for Windows 7 or Vista user :
You actually need to open Notepad as administrator on top setting the User Account Control Settings to low.
Right click on the Notepad and run as Administrator. That way you wont have the “Access Denied” error when trying to save the changes.

For Mac OS X users:

1. Open terminal.app (Application -> Utilities -> Terminal)
2. type: sudo nano /etc/hosts
3. type your password when prompted
4. Add this line at the end of file: 203.106.85.66 www.facebook.com
5. Press Control-O to save the file, press Enter on filename prompt.
6. Press Control-X to exit the text editor.
7. (optional) Flush DNS cache with the command: dscacheutil -flushcache
8. Visit http://www.facebook.com and enjoy the fast speed!

Warning on your browser?  :

While it is easy to edit HOSTS file but messing it up will cause unexpected web browsing experience. You may get an untrusted certificate error on your browser.
Is it safe or not? Proceed it or not? It’s your choice.

Conclusion :

This is a good temporary speedy solution, it really work and make our Facebook loading become much more faster. But if you guys want to revert back to normal or original stage, then you just need to delete that 2 added sentence in “Host” file on Step 3 as mentioned above.

To be safe, do change your Facebook account password, so you’ll get a new password for your account. You should revert back (remove the added line) after the submarine telecommunications cable system has been fixed.

& Share this information with your facebook friends if they are still not using this temporary solution.

Just post any comment below if you have any question.