How Linux Gave Me Faster Internet (Without Even Trying)
The Setup
I dual boot: Windows 11 on one side, Linux Mint on the other.
Same machine. Same Wi-Fi. Same network conditions.
But here's the twist — I’m not running stock Windows.
Before anyone says “bloatware did it,” I already stripped it clean.
What I Did to Windows
I went all in:
- Custom scripts to remove bloat and telemetry
- Disabled background services, ad systems, and syncing
- Registry cleaned up
- Defender? Gone.
- Xbox/GameBar? Gone.
- OneDrive? Not a chance.
I even split my network into separate 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, then forced the laptop to stick to 5GHz so it would stop jumping around and tanking speeds.
And after all that work?
Best-case download speed: 5–20 Mbps, fluctuating, and occasionally disconnecting.
What I Did to Linux
Installed Mint.
No tweaking. No tuning. No custom anything.
What Happened?
Boom. 35 Mbps, stable. No bouncing, no hiccups, no weird background processes eating bandwidth. It just worked.
Why?
I could get technical about network stacks, background tasks, and invisible Windows daemons doing who-knows-what — but the short version is:
Linux doesn’t assume ownership of your connection.
It asks nothing, and it gets out of the way.
The Takeaway
I spent hours customizing Windows to behave itself.
Linux behaved by default.
If your connection is flaky and you've tried everything...
maybe the problem isn't your router, or your ISP, or your drivers.
Maybe the OS just talks too much.
Top comments (3)
So the takeaway is... Linux > Windows ? No wonder my Windows laptop is so slow.
I'd try this but I once tried to speed up my laptop but unfortunately I uninstalled some random driver (I cant remeber which one lol) and now I cant connect to public wifi spots😅
Kudos to you for all your impressive efforts! I hope one day to have this level of tech savy-ness and incredible wifi speeds!🔥💯
LOL I can relate to accidentally removing things you shouldnt and not being able to use wifi. I built a script to purge windows of bloat about a week ago and accidentally killed my bluetooth when i tested the script. Windows just has many different forms of tracking and always priorities itself over the apps you are actually using.
Sounds like this script might be for you, I'm a laptop type dude myself so I built it with wireless functionality in mind. check out the description for it. If you use the xbox features or not, theres 2 modes when you run it to remove all the heavy stuff.
github.com/Ghotet/windows-gamer-de...
You can also be a total wizard and just run Powershell as Admin on Windows and paste this line and hit enter:
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; ./windows-gamer-debloat.ps1
That would run my script for you without having to dowload it from github and such.
Enjoy :) lol
Oh wow, this is awesome. I'll definitely look into it. Thanks!
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