internet accelerator?

[Ted Shoemaker]

Anyone know of a good internet accelerator?

One of the local ISPs advertises that, if you switch to them, they'll
give you an internet accelerator so that you can download "up to 5 X's
faster" while using the same dialup modem as before.

I'm guessing that
(a) that claim is misleading,
(b) comparable freewares exist which will work with the ISP I already
have,
or
(c) such programs are a bad idea.

Any comments?

Please respond to the group and not to my email.

Thank you,

Ted Shoemaker

 

[burris]

Free or not, I have yet to find one that did anything except screw up
the system.

You would be better off downloading the free DrTcp and going to
DSLReports to do a tweak test, with suggestions and then do a speed test.

http://www.dslreports.com/drtcp

Go to this site and download the latest DrTcp and then go to tools in
the left sidebar and do the tests I mentioned above.

Any questions....post back....

burris

 

[Bob S.]

I think he may be referring to the software being touted by Juno (and
several others) which - "I think" (not sure) simply caches the sites you
frequently visit so it doesn't have to update everything. It learns over
time and if its already in the cache then the perception is you have a
faster link. That's an over-simplification but I think its close.

There's no free lunch whatever their trick is and the suggestion for going
to dslreports is a good one.

Bob S.

 

[Dick Kistler]

I think he may be referring to the software being touted by Juno (and
several others) which - "I think" (not sure) simply caches the sites you
frequently visit so it doesn't have to update everything. It learns over
time and if its already in the cache then the perception is you have a
faster link. That's an over-simplification but I think its close.

There's no free lunch whatever their trick is and the suggestion for going
to dslreports is a good one.

Bob S.

Propel is the name brand accelerator at Bellsouth.net. I think it does two
things. First, it does the caching you're talking about. It sets aside ~20
megabytes minimum on your HD to do this. It also routes all your internet
traffic through its own site transparently and compresses the content. You
then decompress it locally. All transparent. This works great for general
web surfing, giving a 2-5 times apparent speedup-but it doesn't work quite
as well for downloads. It's hard to say what the actual speedup is since all
the numbers that the accelerator gives are funny, ie gives a low connection
speed to accentuate the speedup. The only operating downside is that it
automatically configures Internet Explorer to use its own proxy server, so
to use Proxomitron, you have to repeatedly reset the proxy port. I don't
know what other potential spyware problems it may cause.

I think that you can subscribe to Propel and use it with any ISP. Some,
including Bellsouth, don't charge extra for it.

Sorry this isn't freeware.

Dick Kistler

 

[Kanda' Jalen Eirsie]

Greetings...

Anyone know of a good internet accelerator?

Actually there are many free accelerators.

Basically what they do is:

Cache your lookups - whenever you type in a url your DNS (usually your ISP) has to go
out looking for the actual address that www.whatever.com ( <-Beargear.com ! weird)
resolves into... It intercepts your DNS (domain name server) request and sends you
directly to the IP address. On a 28.8 dialup that process alone can sometimes take 3-5
minutes!

Compress html - html is usually simple plain text - using compression the actual number
of bytes transferred can be lowered - however, compression can adversely effect files or
formats which are ALREADY compressed - like jpeg (these days, MOST images), zip,rar files,
etc... As it adds even more overhead information. Graphically intensive pages don't
download well!...

Piddles around with your browser settings to take control of it's update feature. One
of the MAJOR complaints against these so called accelerators is that the page on your
screen frequently isn't the page you are trying to look at, but an old one that you
visited yesterday. Since most pages don't change too much except perhaps the actual
layout. But if you are trying to use a site that updates frequently - they can be a real
pain in the butt!

Fiddles with your TCP/IP settings to make sure you are actually using your available
bandwidth efficiently...

Blocks popups and adverts which on a dialup can eat your bandwidth significantly... And
if you actually use a particular service - AOL, Earthlink, basically all the major big
dialup providers dump a certain level of advert pollution on you to purposefully annoy you
into upgrading to their expensive DSL or broadband services...

Uses mirror sites to find download requests or faster servers that aren't so loaded down
as the one you are looking on...

Analyses your modem and your dialup connection to attempt to connect faster.

All in all, except for the DNS service, you can pretty much optimize your setup yourself.
And even then, the DNS cachers only work well if you frequent the same sites, for general
random surfing they are almost worse than useless as like compression, they add an extra
layer that can screw up...

HTML Compression really is a double edged sword. More often than not unless you are
using a provided accelerator from a specific ISP it really doesn't do you much good...

(BTW: This is the core of the major enhancements in AOL 9 - AOL add blocking,
compression, and pre downloaded graphics and DNS lookups, in addition to the bugs and
features fixes).

ll
Kanda'

<>SPAM-KILLER<>- If you really want to contact me, then -
kandaje<at>bresnan<dot>net

You figure it out...

 

[omega]

Actually there are many free accelerators.

Basically what they do is:

[...]

A useful post.

Now that the subject is on, perhaps I can get advice on the type of
accelerator I've intended on installing. One that I can tell to log
URLs I visit, and put their IPs into my hosts file.

Cache your lookups - whenever you type in a url your DNS (usually your ISP) has to go
out looking for the actual address that www.whatever.com ( <-Beargear.com ! weird)
resolves into... It intercepts your DNS (domain name server) request and sends you
directly to the IP address.

I've assumed that they all use the hosts file for this. Or are there other
ways? Like such a thing as having one's own local DNS server? (I'm putting
words together from air on this second question, in anticipation that a
reply will put things back together into valid form.)

On a 28.8 dialup that process alone can sometimes take 3-5 minutes!

I've witnessed that. Just looking up my news server, when I had it in name
form, not IP, that can be a way slowmo conversation.

And even then, the DNS cachers only work well if you frequent the same sites, for general
random surfing they are almost worse than useless as like compression, they add an extra
layer that can screw up...

Any web pages I should read about on this? I only wanted to have a small
list, say about 1-200 entries, in my hosts file. For that method, I'd have
no concern, correct?

 

[omega]

Actually there are many free accelerators.

[from the list:]

Compress html - html is usually simple plain text - using compression the actual number
of bytes transferred can be lowered - however, compression can adversely effect files or
formats which are ALREADY compressed - like jpeg (these days, MOST images), zip,rar files,
etc...

Are you sure this one belongs in the "free" list? I thought it was server-
side dependent. One of those services you pay for (directly or as part of
your ISP fee). Not something you can just do locally.

.. . .

Not something I would want, in any case. One comment: The "3x faster" speed
results I've seen advertised were based on downloading big fat sites full
of ads, such as msn, cnn, etc. The average ACF'er isn't loading all those
ad-server graphics to start with, making those tests largely irrelevant.

 

[omega]

Kanda' Jalen Eirsie <[email protected]>:

Now that the subject is on, perhaps I can get advice on the type of
accelerator I've intended on installing.


I've assumed that they all use the hosts file for this. Or are there other
ways? Like such a thing as having one's own local DNS server?

I can update my request for advise a small notch. Since I've now put a search
into Google for DNS caching. Bringing me to seeing that the hosts thing can
be called the DNS index - and that DNS caching is something else.

http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/tune-24.html

| The local cache on Windows XP (and Windows 2000) is there so that local clients
| don't need to query the DNS servers for the same addresses. This has a slight
| speed advantage, and also reduces network traffic, when you would want to (re)use
| an address that is already in the cache. This cache is known as Resolver Cache.

I have W9X, and as far as I'm aware, we don't have this resolver cache. So an
option could be AnalogX FastCache.

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/fc.htm

| AnalogX FastCache is a caching DNS server that runs on your local machine and
| handles any DNS request that your computer makes, from Internet Explorer to your
| favorite FTP client. Once a query is made, FastCache will override the normal
| timeout for the item with one that you specify, so instead of saving a query
| for a couple of seconds, it can save it for a couple of days.

The AnalogX page points to WebAttack's instruction page.

http://www.webattack.com/dns_setup.html

| How To configure Windows to use the local DNS server instead of the
| one provided by your ISP.

That which I'm not about to jump into, not without reading the pros and cons.
And now I better understand your comment:

Until I think I'd want to spend a lot of time investigating, then I'll be
happiest to just go with my initial simple want: a freeware to auto-add
100-200 frequent sites to my hosts index. I've seen around programs to do
this, and might even have some downloaded. If someone already has experience
with one they'd recommend, to save me testing time, I'd appreciate that.

 

[Kanda' Jalen Eirsie]

Greetings...

I've assumed that they all use the hosts file for this. Or are there other
ways? Like such a thing as having one's own local DNS server? (I'm putting
words together from air on this second question, in anticipation that a
reply will put things back together into valid form.)

Well, yes - you could maintain a local DNS.. It would eventually be like hosting the
CDDB (the online database of all music CD's...) on your own machine... Unless of course
you have a super computer handy... Host files do have a tendency to grow.... But if
you keep it small, it should stay under control...

Any web pages I should read about on this? I only wanted to have a small
list, say about 1-200 entries, in my hosts file. For that method, I'd have
no concern, correct?

Probably not.. The biggest problem really is when IP addresses change - and that
happens frequently. Suddenly you can't find the pages anymore. The accelerator softwares
would then do a DNS lookup to get the correct IP, you however (maintaining your own DNS
table) would have to then manually edit and correct the IP address...

Hmm...
Well, I just googled Speed up DNS requests and got about 14,000 hits...

A quick sampling shows that about 60 % look to be commercial sites, basically
advertising their accelerators, another 30% look to be trash, about 10% look to be other
people's experiences some with tips...


All in all, --- When I was on a dialup - I tried a number of the accelerators, and came
to the conclusion that in general, while they sometimes worked as advertised, all in all,
it's still a dial up connection. I found that I got more useful speed increases by making
sure my telephone lines were in good condition, and that my modem was set up properly...

ll
Kanda'

<>SPAM-KILLER<>- If you really want to contact me, then -
kandaje<at>bresnan<dot>net

You figure it out...

 

[Kanda' Jalen Eirsie]

Greetings...

Are you sure this one belongs in the "free" list? I thought it was server-
side dependent. One of those services you pay for (directly or as part of
your ISP fee). Not something you can just do locally.

You are correct - it's a function of the accelerators you get from the nationwide ISP's
it IS server dependent... Though I have seen a couple of freebies ( adware) that do it,
but they require you to proxy through their server - probably so they can bombard you with
THEIR ads...

The most common functions of the FREE accelerators is DNS lookup caching and file
mirroring and resuming...

ll
Kanda'

<>SPAM-KILLER<>- If you really want to contact me, then -
kandaje<at>bresnan<dot>net

You figure it out...

 

[bassbag]

I can update my request for advise a small notch. Since I've now put a search
into Google for DNS caching. Bringing me to seeing that the hosts thing can
be called the DNS index - and that DNS caching is something else.

http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/tune-24.html

| The local cache on Windows XP (and Windows 2000) is there so that local clients
| don't need to query the DNS servers for the same addresses. This has a slight
| speed advantage, and also reduces network traffic, when you would want to (re)use
| an address that is already in the cache. This cache is known as Resolver Cache.

I have W9X, and as far as I'm aware, we don't have this resolver cache. So an
option could be AnalogX FastCache.

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/fc.htm

| AnalogX FastCache is a caching DNS server that runs on your local machine and
| handles any DNS request that your computer makes, from Internet Explorer to your
| favorite FTP client. Once a query is made, FastCache will override the normal
| timeout for the item with one that you specify, so instead of saving a query
| for a couple of seconds, it can save it for a couple of days.

The AnalogX page points to WebAttack's instruction page.

http://www.webattack.com/dns_setup.html

| How To configure Windows to use the local DNS server instead of the
| one provided by your ISP.

That which I'm not about to jump into, not without reading the pros and cons.
And now I better understand your comment:


Until I think I'd want to spend a lot of time investigating, then I'll be

I have w98 too and find that the greatest speed can be achieved by
altering the mtu and rwin.Most auto ones suggest an mtu of 576 and a rwin
of 2144 for dial up but in my experience 1500 and 8760 is much faster on
my system and with my isp.Ive tested modem booster in the past which does
28 tests and concludes on the optimum results.Unfortunatly its optimum
settings werent as fast as the ones id put in practise so its a little
trial on error.Id recommend mtuspeed from here...
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,5332,00.asp
It says its payware after a free trial but in fact its a "donation" ware
from the readme file...

"This is purely a voluntary contribution. I realise that many people will
not wish to pay money for such a utility and will continue to treat it as
freeware. However, it's a free world and if I locked it then someone
would soon post a crack on one of the warez groups."

with nothing disabled etc, its also not supported anymore but still a
good prog for 95/98 users.You can ping your isp with the tool also and
find your best rwin.I find it invaluable.#
me

 

[Helen]

I think he may be referring to the software being touted by Juno (and
several others) which - "I think" (not sure) simply caches the sites you
frequently visit so it doesn't have to update everything. It learns over
time and if its already in the cache then the perception is you have a
faster link. That's an over-simplification but I think its close.

There's no free lunch whatever their trick is and the suggestion for going
to dslreports is a good one.

Bob S.

Granted that if it already has the site it is faster than if it has to
search, find and then go to it. But in the USA
the bottom line is simply that nothing will give you the speed you want,
even most 56K modems rarely reach
56K. Why? Because the F.C.C. has a legal limit that cannot be exceeded
without tremendous repercussions.
Think of it as a highway that's unregulated, onto which there can be any
vehicle anyone wants: boats, trains,
kiddie wagons, a 747 taxing, a goat drawn cart, a Mercedes sports
convertible, etc. Without regulation there
would be more chaos than there already is, but for the speed, consider
what you have a blessing. None of
the programs can over-ride that FCC (Federal Communications Commission)
allowed maximum, thus any
program that affords you that 'feel good' feeling is merely a facade.
After all, can't your machine look like
XP in the foreground and actually be something else? (Rhetorical
question). I rest my case.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Helen

 

[Rob]

Propel is the name brand accelerator at Bellsouth.net. I think it
does two things. First, it does the caching you're talking about. It
sets aside ~20 megabytes minimum on your HD to do this. It also
routes all your internet traffic through its own site transparently
and compresses the content. You then decompress it locally. All
transparent. This works great for general web surfing, giving a 2-5
times apparent speedup-but it doesn't work quite as well for
downloads. It's hard to say what the actual speedup is since all the
numbers that the accelerator gives are funny, ie gives a low
connection speed to accentuate the speedup. The only operating
downside is that it automatically configures Internet Explorer to use
its own proxy server, so to use Proxomitron, you have to repeatedly
reset the proxy port. I don't know what other potential spyware
problems it may cause.

I think that you can subscribe to Propel and use it with any ISP.
Some, including Bellsouth, don't charge extra for it.

Sorry this isn't freeware.

Dick Kistler

To my knowledge all the ISP's that offer such an accelerator use the
technology / software from Slipstream (see http://www.slipstreamdata.com/).
The important software resides at the ISP servers where it compresses the
data before it sends it to the subscriber's PC. Special client software
resides at the subscribers' PC. One of the settings that the subscriber can
set is "image quality". If lower the image quality the faster the
connection.

Hmm.. Do you really want to speed things in exchange for more fuzzy images,
icons etc???

I suspect that you can load web pages up to 5 times faster simply by using
Webwasher or Proxomitron to filter out ads. By not loading all those
unnecessary ads you can definitely speed up your surfing experience,

Since many dial up users are switching to DSL or some other high speed
alternative, many ISP's who offer dial up service are trying to find ways to
keep their subscribers (and make some extra $$ by offering this next to
useless accelerator service).

I understand that AOL is also considering offering this accelerator service
using this technology from Slipstream.. Since this accelerator service is a
bunch of marketing hogwash (IMHO), I can understand why AOL is considering
offering it! (smile)

Rob