Google services are slow. How can I fix this?

[391]

For the past few weeks I've noticed that Google services (Gmail, Google+, YouTube, etc) are slow. Primarily where I see the slowness is when I try to view a photo gallery on G+ (it takes 10-20 seconds to load the thumbnails of the photos), or download an attachment from Gmail where I see an average download speed of approx 30 KBps. YouTube is less problematic, but I frequently notice that I get less buffering if I use LTE on my phone vs my WiFi when watching YouTube videos.

I just recently started using G+ (the first place I noticed the slowness), so chances are pretty good that Google has been slow for a while before I noticed it.

The Google web search seems fast, but Gmail and G+ are services where I can definitely a speed difference. They only seem slow at home for me, if I use them at work they're not slow.

Other websites, however, are not slow at home. I get normal download speeds for seemingly everything except Gmail and G+. Speedtest shows the results I would expect based on the speed tier I am subscribed to.

I asked a friend if he's had any similar problems and he has not. He lives about 6 miles away and uses the same ISP (Road Runner via Bright House Networks). My office is also using Bright House Networks and is about half a mile from my house, so I don't think this is an ISP issue.

Since only Google services seem to be affected that seems to point to a Google problem, however since the services work fine at other locations that would seem to indicate that my home network is the problem. I'm stumped as to what could be causing the problem or how to troubleshoot it. Any suggestions?
Browser does not seem to matter. I have tried IE, FF, Chrome all with the same results.

[december1999]

Use firefox instead of google chrome.

[Roy]

Changing for a new browser