> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.agen.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Network Feels Slower
> What AgenShield does and does not add to network performance, how to tell whether a slowdown comes from AgenShield or from your network, and what to send support if it is us.
If your Mac's network feels slower after installing AgenShield — pages loading
sluggishly, remote desktop or screen sharing lagging, file transfers dragging —
this page helps you tell the two apart, because they have very different causes
and very different fixes.
## What AgenShield adds, and what it does not
The network extension inspects each **new** connection to apply your
organization's policy. That check costs a few milliseconds per connection.
It does **not** sit in the path of the data itself. Once a connection is
allowed, the traffic on it is handled by the operating system directly, so
AgenShield adds nothing per packet and nothing to sustained transfer speed.
That distinction is the whole diagnosis:
| Symptom | Consistent with AgenShield? |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| Apps feel slow to *start* talking; pages with many resources feel sluggish | Possibly — a few ms per connection adds up |
| Screen sharing / remote desktop lags **during** a session | No — that is a per-packet cost |
| Large file transfers are slow | No — that is a throughput cost |
| Video calls stutter | No — that is a per-packet cost |
A laggy remote-desktop session is the most common report, and it is almost
never AgenShield. A session opens a handful of connections and then streams;
a few milliseconds paid once at setup cannot produce lag you feel minutes in.
## Confirm it in about two minutes
In Terminal, replacing the address with the other machine's:
```bash theme={"theme":{"light":"snazzy-light","dark":"dark-plus"}}
ping -c 50 192.0.2.10
```
Look at the summary line. On a local network this should be a small number
of milliseconds with little variation. Tens of milliseconds, or a large
standard deviation, means the network path itself is unstable.
This is the key test because `ping` does not go through connection
filtering at all. **If `ping` is slow or erratic, the problem is the
network, not AgenShield** — and no change to AgenShield will improve it.
```bash theme={"theme":{"light":"snazzy-light","dark":"dark-plus"}}
system_profiler SPAirPortDataType | grep -iE "Signal|PHY Mode|Channel|Transmit Rate"
```
A weak signal, a narrow or crowded channel, or a low transmit rate all
produce exactly the lag described above. Check this on **both** machines —
when two computers on Wi-Fi talk to each other, every packet crosses the
air twice, so the weaker of the two links governs the experience.
Connect either machine to the network by cable and repeat the activity that
felt slow. If it improves, the cause was Wi-Fi. This single test resolves
the large majority of reports.
## Other endpoint-security products on the same Mac
Most organizations run more than one security product, and each one that
inspects network connections adds its own per-connection check. The effects
add up, and no single vendor's dashboard shows you the total.
If your Mac runs other endpoint-security software alongside AgenShield, factor
that in before attributing a slowdown to any one product. Your IT team can see
the full list of installed security extensions.
## When to escalate
Contact support if, after the checks above:
* `ping` to the other machine is **fast and stable**, but connections still
feel slow to establish; or
* the slowdown appeared immediately after an AgenShield upgrade and nothing
else on the network changed; or
* a specific application stopped working rather than merely slowing down —
that is a policy question, not a performance one, and is covered by
[Common Issues](../troubleshoot/common-issues.mdx).
Include the output of the two commands above and a
[diagnostic bundle](../troubleshoot/collecting-diagnostics.mdx). The bundle contains
the connection timing AgenShield records, which lets support separate our cost
from the network's without guessing.