Why is DegreeForum so SLOW lately?

[jch]

That traceroute does not actually indicate any issue. Note that after hop 13, you're still receiving responses, including from the final destination. How would that happen if you were experiencing 100% loss on hop 13? Well, it wouldn't. As all of your probes made it to and from the destination with an acceptable latency, there is no problem demonstrated. Note that, like any measurement system, it's important to think through traceroute responses and understand what it's actually telling you. There's a hop that simply won't respond to traceroutes, which is quite normal and not an issue. While traceroute appears to be a simple tool, it's quite difficult to apply and interpret correctly.