Chrome download speed slowly slows down

Question

When I try to download something, the download starts at 20Mb/s for less than a second then goes down to 10Mb/s also for less than a second, then goes to 4 the down to a solid 2Mb/s, I canceled and re-downloaded the file multiple times, and had the same results, does this mean that my connection speed is capable of 20Mb/s? average solid download speed is 4Mb/s, 2.4G connection.

Answer 1

The download or upload speed indication can vary all over the place depending on many factors.

To understand, first install mtr to view the path that your internet connection takes to a certain site (this is a simple traceroute replacement or alternative)

At the prompt in a shell, type this and press enter at the end...

$ sudo apt-get install mtr  

... it asks for your password to allow for the download and install of mtr

Now, again at the prompt, type.

$ mtr www.google.com

... and you will see something similar to (not the same!)

                              My traceroute  [v0.86]
wkbx (0.0.0.0)                                            Sat Jun 15 07:34:06 2019
Keys:  Help   Display mode   Restart statistics   Order of fields   quit
                                          Packets               Pings
 Host                                   Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. 192.168.222.1                        0.0%    16    0.3   0.3   0.3   0.4   0.0
...
 5. 10.30.71.97                          0.0%    16    0.5   0.5   0.5   0.7   0.0
 6. 10.30.71.93                          0.0%    16    0.6   0.6   0.5   0.7   0.0
 7. 10.30.71.89                          0.0%    16    0.6   0.6   0.5   0.6   0.0
 8. 10.30.71.85                          0.0%    16    0.6   0.6   0.5   0.8   0.0
 9. 10.200.205.37                        0.0%    16   28.4   8.0   0.5  50.0  16.4
10. 10.200.205.61                        0.0%    16    1.3   1.3   1.3   1.5   0.0
11. 10.200.200.86                        0.0%    16    1.4   1.5   1.3   2.1   0.0
12. 10.200.200.97                        0.0%    16    3.6   8.2   3.3  67.7  16.0
13. 10.200.200.25                        0.0%    16    3.5   4.9   3.5  26.1   5.6
...
17. 108.170.253.161                      0.0%    15    7.0   6.8   6.5   7.3   0.0
18. 209.85.241.29                        0.0%    15    5.9   5.9   5.7   6.2   0.0
19. arn09s20-in-f4.1e100.net             0.0%    15    5.4   5.4   5.3   5.6   0.0

Each numbered line in this list has the IP-address of a computer (router, switch, ... - i.e. nodes) on the internet that is involved in sending your data to "www.google.com" (something.1e100.net) and receiving a reply back. The numbers to the right of each of them tells how well that particular node communicates with your computer.
Internet uses TCP/IP for communication, where packets are sent back and forth, the numbers in the list tell how many packets that has been lost, and the time it took to get a reply.

Now, to get to grips with the download (or upload) speed, do google for a speed test that is located close to you. e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=internet+speed Check out how that test works and ponder on the numbers it tells you.

The above should help you realize that internet speeds depends on many factors, that often are local to you and might e.g. vary with time of day, how many people are 'using the lines' (user concurrency) and what technical equipment (Radio, modem, DSL, fibre, ...) is used for them.