Stardock Forums
The download speeds are really slow. According to some of the URLs, it appears to be pointing to https://cdn.stardock.us/ but damn, whatever CDN you're using is not even remotely fast. And I'm on AT&T FTTH service with 1 Gbps downstream.
Hello,
I have forwarded your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant
While this is somewhat subject and dependent on many factors, is it still the case? If so, what are you downloading......?
Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager
I was downloading an update to Start11. And as for the speeds, it took over three minutes to download the update file, that's dog slow.
For instance...
That's just 2 MB per second. In terms of modern Internet speeds, that's pretty slow. When I think of a CDN I usually think of something like Cloudflare or AWS which allows for you to contact the geographically closest server so that you can get the fastest downloads possible.
Apparently, you're not using Cloudflare for your CDN.
Thank you for the feedback, trparky.
Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager
Wow, this problem is still there almost a full year later, or it's back. Trying to download start11 for another machine (I bought the 5 pack), and it was going at 75 kB/s and eventually failed. Started again and it hit a still-slow 200 kB/s and finally succeeded. (Speedtest shows my ISP is delivering real download rate of 350 Mbps, so the problem is not on my side.)
Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. I have forwarded your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience. Thank you.
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant
Wow, a 50.40 MB file took over 10 minutes to download. This is almost dial-up speeds, it's 2025 and this has been a problem for at least a year or more. Can we get some actual updates on this other than "We appreciate your feedback and patience."
Where are you downloading from (geo) - just did a download here and it took about 90 seconds for the file.
There are many different factors that put limits on download speeds, with a release of software today that is going to add thousands of additional downloads per hour over a nominal day.
It doesn’t matter whether I download today or on any other day,the speeds are consistently slow. I’m not sure what file you tested with, but if it was under a couple hundred MB, it shouldn’t take 90 seconds. A file like the Start 11 update should only take a few seconds.
If you’re using a CDN, it may be worth evaluating another provider. If you’re not using one, I strongly recommend implementing one. Handling thousands of downloads per hour should be straightforward, and current performance reflects poorly on your brand.
Same for me here, trying to update Start11 via update functionality. Very slow, it's like using a modem again. This has almost every time been the case with Stardock download servers.
Hello,
Sorry to hear you're running into this issue. From what I understand, our Support team is already aware of it, and hopefully there’ll be some improvements or updates in the near future. We really appreciate your feedback and your patience, it helps us move forward.
Thank you,
Basj
Stardock Community Assistant
Yes the Start11 updates are always extremely slow from Australia too, and have been for years, for a 50MB file. At minimum 5-10 minutes.
I only ever install an update when I have a lot of time available. Today it hung at 30MB out of 50MB.
It's a shame for an otherwise great product.
Thanks
Start11v2 update slow here too and I have fibre broadband.
Taking up to around 10 minutes just to download the update 
Definitely not my end, as download speed on all other sites are fine except for this site.
Hi everyone and thank you for your feedback.
To update: download speeds have been addressed and should now experience improvement.
Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.
Thanks again and best regards,
Adam McGuinness
Stardock Support Specialist
It's a little faster at roughly 1.5 MB/s which is a drastic improvement over the near dial-up speeds that they were before. However, what gets me is why aren't you guys using Cloudflare?
Download speeds for updates in Taiwan are still extremely slow and get stuck, unable to complete the download.
If that's not proof that Stardock needs to partner with Cloudflare, I don't know what is. Heck, they can even sign up for the free version of Cloudflare, and they'd have their downloads able to be downloaded anywhere in the world at full speed!!!
Come on Stardock, get some Cloudflare in the mix. It's not like every download is custom-made for each user—every download is the same and that means they can be cached on a global-scale.
Unable to download the latest release of Start11 - it gets about halfway through then the download fails.
Yes, me too. Trying to download from Germany. Update stucks at 20 MB, 30MB, 2MB or fails to start. That's not okay folks. It's slow for me since I bought Start 11 a couple of years ago and the download speed never improved in all these years. But it never stucked... 
I can confirm this issue, but it stuck at about 95% for me in the US. The next attempt was successful.
Are you all still seeing the stuck download, there was a DNS issues earlier (it's always DNS) but we believe that is now mostly resolved.
As for speed, we are working on making improvements - it's always a more complex process than it sounds but today was the first change towards a faster future.
I've tried 3 times to update to Start11 v2.5.6.3, but the downloads keep failing.
Still no good from California - the download gets about 50% done and then ceases.
I don't think DNS would stall a download in mid-stream ;(
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