Reply #5: Accelerators ...

[RoyGBiv]

"Programs," that is a purely software solution that doesn't rely on any technology being used by the ISP, don't work very well. In simplified form, they do speed up some things because what they basically do is use caching on your machine to serve you parts of web pages that you visit often. They do this more efficiently that a web browser does. What you need is an accelerator offered by your ISP. (And this may be what you're talking about, but I wanted to make the distinction because you can find 3rd-party accelerator software that doesn't interact with the ISP.)

Besides the software, dialup providers like Netzero provide an accelerator service. This also uses local caching, but they have also implemented changes in the way their system works that speeds up the process of collecting information from the web and sending it to you. Part of the bottleneck with a dialup is caused by the fact that when you hit a website, you're communicating directly with it on a very slow connection, and it takes longer for that remote site to get information back from you that it needs to know what to send you. We're talking fractions of seconds here, but over hundreds of exchanges of information between you and the remote system, it does add up. The accelerator throws in a middle-man. You're connected to the accelerator via your ISP, which is close and doesn't take as much time to communicate with you, and the accelerator then does the communication with the rest of the web. It stores the information it receives to be sent to you and does so as you are able to take it. Again, we're talking about fractions of a second, but it does add up. The accelerator "server" also compresses things and has other tricks it plays that makes the effective speed you experience better.

Do note that no matter what you do, your actual speed will never go above what your connection allows. This is effective or perceived speed, and in that, you will notice a difference. But with this in mind be aware that some kinds of content are able to be accelerated while others are not.

Accelerated Items:

HTML/Plain test web pages
GIF/JPEG images
Text or HTML based e-mail

NOT Accelerated:

Streaming video/audio
Downloads of any kind
E-mail attachments
Secure webpages (a secure page requires a direct link to your computer)

So, basically, it'll make web browsing seem faster. Your experience at DU will seem faster. Downloading anything will not be faster.