Internet Speed Boosting

[Nerwin]

Hey guys

I always wanted to know if thouse internet speed boosting Progams do really increase the speed of the connection?

I know this is a dumb question but I really need to get this out of my head.

[EchoNoise]

They use some form of cache or compression in one way or another, like that evil google accelerator program!

It caches pages from links on the page your looking at, so it comes up quicker... Only downside is that it caches a whoooole lot more than what you would look up, mainly chewing up bandwidth and if you have a download cap, it might go over faster than expected.

In a delightful manner of answering your question.

No, they don't increase it. Only hinder it.

[Nerwin]

I thought that, Just wanted to be sure, I never use thouse programs I think them as "Spam"

[tain]

Those programs could employ several forms of wizardry to provide a snappier browsing experience.

Multiple network connections

DNS caching

Page caching

Read-ahead caching (like undeadsoldier described)

Registry/system/browser tweaks

So, yeah. They could improve the browsing experience. But not all programs are the same and they probably all use different techniques. And a bloated, resource-hogging app could hurt you.

The questions then become how much do they help and how much do they cost. Those are up to you.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually used any of those apps. This is just me thinking out loud about what they might do.

[nitroshift]

The connection speed is set by your ISP and no third party software can alter that setting. I strongly believe that all these "Connection Speed Boosters" are cr/-\p and will only slow down your pc by accessing more often the pagefile and the internet temp folder (thus the harddisk). Just bloatware IMHO.

Edited September 27, 2006 by nitroshift

[tain]

In theory, I think that they could help. Not with actual speed, of course, but in enhancing the browsing experience. Which is good enough for a lot of people.

Is the problem then the implementation? AKA, none of these apps really get the job done and they really are just bad softare?

[dirtwarrior]

If you use firefox there is a program called fastfox which worhs very well.

[Maleko]

My dad use to use a program called ONSPEED. When we had dial up.

All this program did was lower the quality of images etc, not good if you like browsing DeviantArt etc. Yes, it did speed it up, but you did loose out in some ways.

[nitroshift]

Hey guys

I always wanted to know if thouse internet speed boosting Progams do really increase the speed of the connection?

I know this is a dumb question but I really need to get this out of my head.

I tell ya what WILL boost your internet connection speed: bigger bandwidth

[N1K]

If you use firefox there is a program called fastfox which worhs very well.

To be honest, I haven't felt the difference...