(7/7/04) Quick ways without spending a dime
Aug 27 '00 (Updated Jul 07 '04)
The Bottom Line You don't need to spend money to speed up your internet connection. Just apply some tips and tweaks and change your surfing habits and you might be surprised.
Edited July 7th, 2004.
Wow. It's been about 4 years since I originally wrote this review and much has changed with the internet and the technology. At the time in 2000, DSL was just starting to happen, along with cable and broadband access. At that time, a good number of people were still accessing the internet using a 56K dial up modem. The original review was written for those still accessing the internet via the modem and I gave out tweaks and tips on how to optimize the speed.
Nowadays, with broadband connection, you certainly don't have much of a lag or delay when you load up a web page. You click on a link and boom! It's there. Personally, I've used both DSL and cable and for me, cable is better. Setting up is a breeze and I don't have much downtime at all. With DSL, I have to set up line filters, register and clone MAC addresses and periodically, I would lose internet connection (I don't know what happened) and won't be able to get back online for 15 minutes or more. I hardly ever get any downtime with cable. Anyway, back to the review.
With broadband access, there's not really much you can do to tweak it so that any speed gain is noticeable. You can download a registry tweak and just apply it and maybe you can notice some gain in speed.
1-Download a registry tweak. Choose the tweak that is right for your Operating system (ie.Win95, Win98, Win NT, Win2K, XP, etc)
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php
2-Scan for any spyware running on your computer. Even if you don't think you have any spyware running on your computer, it's a good idea to scan for it because most computers have some type of spyware from names they trust, like Real Player, Alexa, etc. You may not know it, but a spyware running in the background can easily gobble up a large chunk of your computer's CPU, and that means, a slower running Windows computer, which means, slower web browser. Just download and install one of the following software since they both do a good job.
Spybot Search & Destroy
www.safer-networking.org
Ad-aware
www.lavasoft.de
3-On a similar note, reduce the number of programs that are running in the background. Check your system tray (bottom lower right corner, beside the clock). If you don't need it, then stop it from running next time you start up Windows. Not only will you speed up Windows load up time, but you might notice that Windows will run a little faster.
You can go to Start, Programs, Startup and delete the program you don't want to load up at Start up.
Or, the more technical way or changing the registry.
Go to C:\Windows or C\WINNT and run Regedit.exe
Before you do anything, make a backup of the registry first. Registry, Export registry and then specify where you want it saved.
Go to My Computer\HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current_Version\Run
You can see all the programs that are programmed to run at Windows start up. Jot the name of the program. Do a search on the net for a description of what the program does. If it's a spyware, then delete it. Once you're done, reboot.
4-Disable plugins from loading, especially Java. Personally, I hate it when a site loads up Java because it takes up so much RAM that everything slows to a halt. And most times, the java stuff that's loaded isn't worth the time to load up. With the Mozilla browser, there's an extension called Pref Buttons and Preferences toolbar that you can select to load or not load java, javascript, images, etc. Most times, I leave Java disabled and surfing has been a breeze (no pun intended). Same thing with other plugins like Macromedia Flash. They slow your browsing. With Mozilla, I am also able to disable Flash loading via the Flash Block extension. And if most of the websites you visit are text based, you can also disable images from loading. Guess what? Mozilla has that feature too. Opera also has the feature of enabling or disabling image loading. In IE, you have to go into the Options and check or uncheck it in the Advanced tab. Very tiresome to do for individual sites. And, you can also block ads and ad images from loading. This feature is also available from an extension for Mozilla called Ad Block. Guess you can tell which browser I use often. So, disabling some web features may improve the speed of your web browsing, although you are missing some stuff. But, at the quick click of your mouse, you can just as easily load them if you discover you're missing all that fun.
For more information on Mozilla and anti-spyware, and related stuff, check out my other, very lengthy review:
Spyware detection, removal and other tips
http://www.epinions.com/content_3999899780
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Original review
These tips won't make your modem double in speed but they should speed it up enough for you to notice the difference.
1-Tweak your mtu and related settings either manually or by using a free software that will do it for you. There are many around. I personally use Ispeed (via www.hms.com) because I like to tweak my settings, since I find that no one setting will forever keep a fast connection. Maybe my old isp kept changing stuff or something, I don't know. So, every once in a while, I test my connection and tweak it if necessary.
2-Make your modem dial faster. Go to Start, Control Panel, Modems. Double click on modems and in the general tab, make sure your modem is highlighted and then click properties, connection, advanced, in extra settings, type the following:
s11=10
Click ok, ok, close.
You can specify a number between 1 and 50. The lower the number, the faster the modem will dial. Some modems ignore any value lower than 50. For those who can't stand hearing the modem dial and connect, you can add in the following also in the same line:
m0
(the 0 is a number zero)
3-Change Dial Up Networking settings. If your computer is not on a network, you can do the following to speed up the login to your isp.
Double click "My Computer", open the "Dial-Up Networking" folder and right click on your connection and select "Properties". Click the "Server Type" tab, and under "Advanced options", uncheck "Log on to network".
Next under "Allowed network protocols", uncheck "NetBEUI" and "IPX/SPX" (leave TCP/IP checked!) and close the window.
Now go back under "Control Panel", double click on the "Network" icon. Highlight the "Dial-Up Adapter", and click "Properties". Click on the "Bindings" tab, and uncheck all items in the list other than TCP/IP. Close all associated windows. Reconnect to your ISP
4-Decrease the time your computer takes for a DNS lookup. Each site you visit has a specific numeric address such as 0.0.0.0 . Each time your computer goes to a site, it has to look up whatever web site name you've typed in and search for the numeric site address. Use a free software such as FastNet99 to search for and store the dns numbers in a file so that it won't have to take more time searching for it while you surf.
5-Try not to use certain free (sponsored advertising) programs that take up bandwidth such as PKzip, Go!Zilla. And yes, I guess that means you'll have to stop using those paid for ad banners if you want a faster connection. I still use PKzip. What I did was just changed the file tsadbot.exe to renamedtasadbot.exe, deleted all the ad files and gifs in the ProgramFiles\TimeSink\AdGateway\Ads\. I think Go!Zilla has ad files under ProgramFiles\Aureate....
Please note that the above tips (except number 5) are obtained from various web sites on the internet and are not thought out by me (darn!) so I really can't take credit for them. I love learning about computers but in no way am I an expert. But I thought I could help people by providing it via this review.
Hopefully the above tips will help. If they don't help, then I suggest getting a faster modem, like DSL or cable because it's much faster, especially downloads. And if you think about it, the extra money you spend on the faster connection could be paid off if you use those get paid for surf programs since you're no longer charged by the minute and bandwidth is almost not a problem. Something to consider.
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maceyr
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