Support

The flashing message is normal. Akeeba Backup's Control Panel and Backup Now pages come with a huge warning about jQuery not having been loaded. As soon as all the scripts on the page do load, a small script runs and makes that warning disappear. The idea is that if the scripts fail to load (a problem which prevents operation), you get to see the warning. When the scripts load (normal operation), you may experience some flicker. This is expected and you should not be worried about it. A faster server and/or Internet connection would make the flicker disappear.

Regarding the backup speed, unless I see a log file I can't possibly tell you why it is taking so long. Everything has to do with it: server performance, size of the database, size and number of files, archiver type, post-processing engine and all of the fine-tuning options. Instead of writing an encyclopedia it's best for me to see the log and tell you what's going on :)