> Hmm.... Black hole MTU negotiation problems? I assumed that your
> "local" meant on your LAN, not nearby web servers.

Yes, I'm sorry, I did not emphasise that clue enough although it's
probably the most important one.

> If you have a DSL connection, try reducing the router MTU from 1500 to
> 1492 and see if it helps.

It's a cable modem, but the router has a MTU setting, which I played
extensively with to no avail.

> Use a program called MTUroute:
> <http://www.elifulkerson.com/projects/mturoute.php>
> to determine if your router is not doing MTU discovery, if your ISP has
> a misconfigured router, or if there is a broken router somewhere along
> the path.

Thank you, this is a very interesting tool I did not know about.
Strangely, one three consecutive runs (from wifi connection) it
reported three wildly different values:

mturoute.exe www.apple.com
Path MTU: 1462 bytes.
Path MTU: 1500 bytes.
Path MTU: 1192 bytes.

> > I know, it's alien-abduction-in-Bermuda-triangle-style weird stuff.
>
> If it were easy, it would be no fun.

:) Guess so, it only makes it sweeter when (if) it works out well.

> Unless I read your description incorrectly, it's only slow via wireless
> on *SOME* web sites. Is this correct?

It is slow "only" with all international (non-Maltese) sites.

Just when I wanted to try out the MTU tool, I decided to do a Factory
Reset of the router just to eliminate any other configuration issues
that might be impacting the problem. In the mean time, I have played
with wifi adapter settings, of which there are only around 10 (mostly
related to power management and performance), again to no avail.

*** Now, the router is reset to factory defaults and the wireless
connection works brilliantly, international and local. ***

If it was one of the network adapter settings, I really don't want to
find out which one. I'll let you know if the problem returned, but so
far it seems wonderful.

Thank you for your ideas and kind help, it's very much appreciated! :)