How to speed up Internet connection. Download accelerators. Modem boosters.

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Turbo Surfer

• Turbo Surfer automatically optimizes your internet connection boosting your internet speed by up to 220%.
• Turbo Surfer optimizes your PC's internet connections to maximum efficiency.
• Web pages will load faster.
• You can send and receive email much faster.
• You will get quicker downloads of MP3s, AVI files, graphics, movies, and more.
• File transfers, online games and all internet related software will perform faster.
• You'll get faster internet speeds without buying costly hardware, or a new computer.
• Works with all browsers, including Explorer, Netscape.
• Works with ALL connections - America Online, Cable Modem, ALL phone modems, even DSL.

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Fact: There are many things you can do to speed up your connection Here is a few:

Fine Tuning Windows
Windows is not typically configured for fast Internet access using a modem. It is optimized for an Ethernet card. This translates into poorer performance for you. Let's go over a few steps on what you can do to increase your performance. Using SpeedTec , InternetTweak, and TweakDUN  you can optimize your connection. These programs modify your registry, so use them at your own risk.

To use these programs to optimize your Registry, you must adjust at least one of the four settings below.

MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit)
MTU is an IP network setting known in the Windows Registry as MaxMTU. This setting dictates how big your packets are. Usually the standard packet setting should be 576. ISP?s say that the smaller the packets the better chance that data can get through with out being corrupted.

It's easy to change the MTU on your PC, and you can do it without using the programs recommended here or going through the Registry editor.

1. Right-click the Network Neighborhood icon on your Windows 98 desktop and select Properties.
2. Select the Configuration tab and highlight Dial-Up Adapter in the Network Components pane. Click the Properties button below the pane.
3. Select the Advanced tab and highlight IP Packet Size. In the Value pane, select Large for 1,500 bytes or Small for 576 bytes. Click OK and restart your computer.
4. Test your connection at MSN Computing Central.

MSS (Maximum Segment Size)
The maximum segment size is a value that two Internet hosts use to negotiate the size of the MTU they will use to exchange data. It should be set at a value of 40 less than the MTU size (or 536 on a standard dial-up line). A correctly set MSS ensures that packets are transmitted properly.

RWin (Default Receive Window)
This IP network setting (DefaultRcvWindows) is the amount of data that your computer can receive before it has to send an acknowledgment to the host. The default setting in Windows 98 is 8,192 bytes; SpeedTec recommends a setting of 16 times MSS (23,360 bytes if you're at an MSS of 1,460 bytes); TweakDUN and InternetTweak both recommend a multiple of 4. Go ahead and experiment to find out what is best for you.

TTL (Time to Live)
This network setting establishes the number of hops across servers that a data packet can take before it expires. The Windows 98 default is 128, which is also recommended by SpeedTec. TweakDUN and InternetTweak suggest 64.

You can use all these programs we just suggested for you. You also can do it by hand.

Hand-Edit Your Registry Settings
You can choose to do things the hard way. Go into your Windows 95 Registry and edit them yourself. This is certainly not for beginners and we are warning you. Go at your own risk.

1. Back up your Registry. Refer to the second commandment of Registry editing.
2. In Windows 98, click the Start button and select Run. Type regedit, and click OK.
3. Find the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\Root\Net. Below it is a series of numbered subkeys (0000, 0001, 0002, and so on). Highlight each numbered subkey in turn until you find the value DeviceDesc equal to Dial-Up Adapter.
4. Now drop another subkey level to Bindings. Highlight that subkey and look for a string that begins with MSTCP. It will be followed by a four-digit number (for example, MSTCP\0000). Write down the number.
5. Find the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\Network\MSTCP and highlight the subkey with the four-digit number in Step 4. Look for the Driver value, which will be equal to NetTrans\0000 (or 0001, and so on). Note that four-digit number for the next step.
6. Drop down to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\NetTrans, and highlight the subkey that shares the four-digit number from step 5. Right-click and choose New/String Value. Name the string value MaxMTU. Right-click the value, choose Modify, and set the value to 1500. Next, add a string value named MaxMSS. Set it to 1460.
7. Exit the Registry. Restart your computer.

You're not finished yet, but you shouldn't make many changes to the Registry without testing the system. Restart your system now. If it restarts smoothly, proceed to the next step. If not, restore the old settings from your backup and try again, if you dare.

1. Back up your Registry under yet another name, different from the one before.
2. Click the Start button and select Run. Type regedit and click OK.
3. Click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\MSTCP.
4. Right-click a blank space in the right-hand pane and select New/String Value. Name the string DefaultRcvWindow. Right-click the DefaultRcvWindow string and select Modify. Enter the Value data as 5840 or 8760 (four or six times the MaxMSS value).
5. Right-click a blank space in the right-hand pane and select New/String Value. Name the string DefaultTTL. Right-click the DefaultTTL string and enter the Value data as 128.
6. Click the Registry menu and select Exit.
7. Restart Windows.

Myth 8: Using the domain name is always faster that using the IP.

Fact: True and false. True for the point that it is easy to remember. False because it takes your browser longer to locate the IP address.

What Do I Suggest? Create an IP List!
The Internet is based on numbers, IP numbers. These have existed long before names ever surfaced. Names are simply for our convenience. When you put say ?Yahoo.com? in the browser, it has to go to the Domain Name Server or DNS for short and fine this IP, then it starts downloading the page. This takes time.

To get around it, I suggest keeping your own DNS database. Start a text file with the numbers instead of the names. There is no DNS resolution therefore it can speed up your Internet time.

The easiest way to collect and cache those IP addresses is to download SpeedTec or TweakDUN. Their button-driven interfaces let you amass a hosts file without typing anything. Both programs are stable, inexpensive, and a snap to install and use.

You can also do this by hand by:

1. In Windows 98, click the Start button and select Run. Type command.
2. In the Open window, type ping, followed by a site's name (for example, ping cnet.com).

You should find a number in this format 000.000.000.000. These numbers symbolize the format only, not what it will actually be. To save these numbers do the following:

1. In Windows 98, click the Start button and select Programs/Accessories/Notepad.
2. Type the IP address you just copied into the text file and follow it with a space and the domain name (for example, 216.200.247.133 cnet.com).
3. Under the File menu, select Save and save the file in your Windows folder as "hosts" (not "hosts.txt").

Be sure to label each number so that you know what is what.

Myth 9: It does not matter what my homepage is.

Fact: It does matter. Usually when browsers are installed they like to make the homepage their home site. Like Microsoft Internet Explorer uses <http://www.msn.com>. This may be all fine and dandy but it takes time out of your precious day to load every time you load a browser. 99% of the time you don?t want to look at that site anyway. Plus it takes up your bandwidth and your processor gets used loading it.

Here is how to get rid of those nasty startup pages:

To load a blank page in Netscape Communicator 4.x:
1. Under the Edit menu, choose Preferences/Navigator.
2. Under Navigator Starts With, select Blank Page.


In Navigator 3.x:
1. Under the Options menu, select General Preferences and choose the Appearance tab.
2. Under Browser Starts With, select Blank Page.


In Internet Explorer 5:
1. Under the Tools menu, click Internet Options and select the General tab.
2. In the Home Page dialog box, click Use Blank. The next time you open your browser, it will open the blank page file (about:blank).


In Internet Explorer 4:
1. Under the View menu, select Options and choose the General tab.
2. In the Home Page dialog box, click Use Blank. The next time you open your browser, it will open the blank page file.

Fact: Huge misconception. Graphics are usually the very reason why WebPages take so long. People don't size down graphics efficiently so you find yourself in a world of never ending senseless downloads. Here is how you turn of graphics:

To turn off graphics in Navigator 4.x:
1. Go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Select Advanced and uncheck Automatically Load Images.

To turn off graphics, animation, and sound in Internet Explorer 4:
1. Go to the View menu, select Options, and choose the Advanced tab.
2. Uncheck the appropriate boxes.

In Internet Explorer 5:
1. Go to the Tools menu and select Internet Options.
2. Choose the Advanced tab and uncheck the Multimedia settings.

To get rid of Java in Navigator 4.x:
1. Go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Select Advanced and uncheck Enable Java.

To get rid of Java and ActiveX in Internet Explorer 4:
1. Under the View menu, select Internet Options and the Security tab.
2. Under the Internet Zone, choose Custom/Settings.
3. Choose options that let you turn off or be warned about ActiveX Controls and Java applets.

To turn off Java in Internet Explorer 5:
1. Under the Tools menu, select Internet Options and the Security tab.
2. Click the Custom Level button.
3. Choose options that let you turn off or be warned about ActiveX Controls and Java applets.

Many sites have something called alternative text. This lets you know what the picture means and why you should click on it.

Myth 11: Caching makes no difference in the performance of your connection.

Fact: This can make one of the hugest differences. This allows your browser to return to the site with out having to download all the graphics over again. They are stored on your hard drive locally hence the term cache. Now I am not talk about money either. This cache helps your connection appear to run faster by loading stored files. We recommend a cache of 10,000K. Any more than this will be counter productive to your hard drive and will fragment it.

Here is how you do it:

To increase your cache size in Navigator 4.x:

1. Under the Edit menu, select Preferences, double-click Advanced, and select Cache.
2. Change the disk cache to 10,000K.

In Internet Explorer 4:
1. Under the View menu, select Internet Options and choose the General tab.
2. Under Temporary Internet Files, click Settings. Under "Amount of disk space to use," drag the slider to the right. The amount to use depends on the size of your hard disk, but it should be about 5 percent. (If you have relatively little RAM and visit graphic-intensive sites, add a bit more to your cache.)

In Internet Explorer 5:
1. Under the Tools menu, select Internet Options and choose the General tab.
2. Under Temporary Internet Files, click Settings. Under "Amount of disk space to use," drag the slider to the right. The amount to use should be about 5 percent of your hard disk.

If you surf a lot without returning to the same sites very often, it helps to purge the cache in the middle of your session.

To clear the cache in Navigator 4.x:
1. Under the Edit menu, select Preferences, double-click Advanced, and select Cache.
2. Click the Clear Memory Cache button.

In Internet Explorer 4:
1. Under the View menu, select Options and choose the General tab.
2. In the Temporary Internet Files dialog box, click Settings/Delete Files.

In Internet Explorer 5:
1. Under the Tools menu, select Internet Options and choose the General tab.
2. In the Temporary Internet Files section, click Delete Files and confirm the deletion.
Keep in mind that your browsers cache is not selective and will cache everything.

Myth 12: DSL can't be any faster than my regular phone line, because it uses my regular phone line.

Fact: It is much faster, %2000 percent faster or more. It uses a range of sound way higher that normal phone lines uses. Phones use 0 to 8000 hertz while DSL uses 8000 to 128,000 hertz.
It is easy to hear if you have line problems, just pick up the phone and listen. You will quickly be able to tell whether a line has problems or not. If it sounds like someone opening a gift then you have a line noise problem. Poor wiring, moisture, and location cause it.
You can pester your phone company to fix the connection, but be warned: telephone companies have a tendency to try to turn the tables with excuses such as "Your phone is probably faulty," or "It's your problem if you have a computer on this line."
If you cleaned up your phone line, customized the Windows Registry, and followed our other tips, and you still crave speed, consider abandoning your traditional connection altogether--or at least modifying it drastically. Your current options for high-speed Internet access are cable connections, digital subscriber lines (DSL), and ISDN.
Cable Modems
Cable modems, theoretically can download at speeds up to 30 mbps. Cable however is not available on a large basis yet, and unless you live in a major city you probably won?t get it. This is not to mention the fact that many people are sharing the speed therefore that in and of itself can slow you down.

DSL and Other Alternatives
Digital subscriber lines piggyback on your phone line to deliver data at up to 6.1 mbps, yet they still leave room on the phone line for you to make a regular voice call. DSL's bandwidth is guaranteed unlike a cable modem.

The only downside to DSL is that right now it's available only in urban parts of the country. DSL prices can range from $40 to $200 a month. The $40 account would be for a home user and the $200 would be for a business and much faster than the $40 account.

FreeDSL (<http://www.freedsl.com> and <http://www.freexdsl.com>), an attractive-sounding alternative, is available only where DSL is already installed, and it's free because you're forced to watch advertisements constantly scroll by in addition to those carried on Web sites.

ISDN
Your last 2 options are ISDN and Satellite link. ISDN typically only connects at 64kps and is hugely expensive. I knew of an office that had 2 ISDN lines and paid $300 for it. I have never figured out why they are so much more expensive and give so little.

Satellite Link
This option is worst off all. Although it is available anywhere, you can only download, not upload from it. Unfortunately the only pay models I have seen from offers like these is on a pay per meg basis which like long distance, gets really expensive really fast!

Myth 13: There is no difference between 33.6 and 56.6k.

Fact: There is a huge difference depending on your phone line. For those of you who cannot get DSL or cable, and don?t want to go to the expense of getting a satellite link, all I can say is upgrade your modem if you haven?t already.

If your ISP does not offer 56.6k then change ISP?s. Even though you may upgrade your modem to 56.6k don?t expect HUGE miracles. Phone line quality as said before could be the culprit for your less than desirable access speeds. Besides it is against the law to connect at 56.6k anyway. The FCC made this law because of how strong a 56.6k connection is. It many cases it will bleed noise over to other peoples lines. Don?t worry though I have never seen a modem connect at 56.6k anyway. The average I usually see is 40 to 48kps.

Some would ask: With all the obstacles, why even bother upgrading? Because by upgrading, you have the best chance of getting a good connection.

Be Careful While You Shop
I would not recommend buying a Winmodem. It uses your system resources to do it?s work, which can cripple your connection. Unless you have a super fast computer, buy a stand alone modem that relies on itself.

Two Modems, Twice the Speed
So, what else can you do to crank up your connection speed? Dial-up modems aren't expected to become any faster; for that, you need DSL or a cable modem.

It is possible however to link up two modems into one data stream. This is made possible by Windows 98. It makes the modems share the same resources thereby combining the data streams. This is called a multilink connection. It is quite easy to do, but you have to have 2 modems. Listed below is some instructions on how to go about this.

To establish a multilink connection on a Windows 98 system:
1. Click the Start button and select Programs/Accessories/Communications/Dial-Up Networking.
2. Right-click your Internet connection icon and choose Properties.
If you don't have a connection already configured, double-click Make New Connection, type multilink, and select your fastest modem (if there's a difference). In the next window, enter your ISP's access number and click OK. Right-click the resulting icon and choose Properties.
3. Select the Multilink tab. Click Use Additional Devices and select your second modem, listed in the window below. Type in the phone number the second modem will dial (it may be the same as the first number; your ISP will tell you).