If you live outside the United States, it might be worthwhile to update your Pop!_Shop official resources list. Unlike Ubuntu, Pop!_OS does not automatically pick the best source for getting updates and sticks with the default of http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/.
To find your current Pop!_Shop official source, open the shop application and click the gear icon on the upper right (you can also launch it directly, look for repoman in the launcher).
If you want to update the official resources, here’s how you can do it:
- Go to the official mirror list: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archivemirrors
- Pick your country of choice and the repo of choice.
- The mirrors in this list are generally considered trustworthy.
- The bandwidth per repo can be seen in the 3rd column.
- Get the URL of your repo of choice by copying the link of the
httpbutton in the 2nd column. - Replace or add the URL in your Pop!_Shop settings, fill in your password when prompted.
- To test, restart the Pop!_Shop and check how long the update takes by keeping an eye on the spinning circle next to the search bar on the upper right.
It is important to try out different repositories! I have found that some repositories in the list take significantly longer to update the Pop!_Shop than others while having the same bandwidth throughput on the mirrors website. Also, I found that if you add multiple sources in the Pop!_Shop official sources list, the shop updates slow down to the slowest source, so in this case more might not be better for speed.