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Best Free Internet Accelerator
Unlike most other accelerators which provide caching on your own PC, Google Web Accelerator (GWA) uses caching on Google's own dedicated web servers to accelerate browsing.
It also uses a number of other techniques to speed things up, including compression of html pages and the use of pre-fetching links. GWA automatically installs into Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers, and can be manually configured to work with other browsers.
To protect user privacy, the accelerator does not function while you are connected to secure sites, such as internet banking. Does it work? You bet! Most users, myself included, report improvements of 10-40% in browsing speeds.
There are, however, some caveats:
- It's only available for Windows XP, Windows 2000 SP3+, and Vista.
- The product is optimized for broadband use, so modem users may experience little or no gain.
- The system currently works best within the USA and Europe, and users located in other areas will only see a small benefit.
- There are some potential privacy issues involved, so all users should closely read what Google has documented on the subject. Personally, I don't have a problem with the privacy issues, but your mileage may vary.
Those reservations aside, this is a terrific product. It provides, at no cost, most of the benefits of expensive commercial web acceleration services like Propel. Download it and see if it speeds up your browsing; if it doesn't, it's perfectly easy to uninstall.
NB: Some Vista users have reported problems with this program (ie. that it simply doesn't work, or that it blocks access). The root causes remain very unclear. It may be a "64-bit problem", or an "SP1 problem", or it may affect only those PCs which are connected to external or internal "private" networks. Because I'm not aware of any uninstallation difficulty, my advice remains the same: you have nothing to loose by trying it.
Product Specifications:
Google Web Accelerator
Website: http://webaccelerator.google.com/
Download page: http://www.filehippo.com/download_google_web_accelerator/tech/
Alternative download link: No
Author: Google Lab.
Current version: 0.2.70
Version date: February 15, 2007
License: Freeware
Download file size: 1.55 MB
Operating systems supported: XP, 2000 SP3+, Vista
Additional software required: IE 5.5+, or Firefox 1.0+
64 Bit version available: No
Portable version available: No
Non-English languages supported: Unknown
Two alternatives which you might like to consider are:
- Ashampoo Internet Accelerator 2
- TCP Optimizer, which is reviewed in this article Best Free TCP Settings Tweaker
This software category is in need of an editor. If you would like to suggest any other products of this type, or are interested in taking over the category then check out this page for more details. You can then contact us from that page or by clicking here.
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Comments
Works nicely but take a look at your CPU
Mine reacts at a very annoying way. The mouse curser keeps changing to the "loading curser". The program raises my CPU with approx. 4% every 5 sec.
I use Vista home edition, but I think to remember the same problem on my XP computer when installing the program at it a couple of years ago.
Btw. sorry for my bad english.. I'm danish ;P
Thanks for your input.
You'll notice that there is a note in the review about problems with Vista. Don't be concerned about your English. Like most Danes, I'm sure you speak it almost perfectly. You should hear what we Brits do to foreign languages!
doesn't work with firefox 3 yet.
Gidday,
Are there any alternatives to Google that work in Australia?
Cheers,
Paul.
Another way to speed up the internet is to use a service like http://www.opendns.com/. You point your DNS to them, create a free account, decide what you want to filter out, and voila! You can surf the internet faster, depending on what you have filtered out (like ads, commercial pages, porn, etc). The huge size of their DNS cache is also supposed to make website lookups faster. I think they are situated somewhere in the States, so locals over there should benefit the most.
Another tool I've heard of is FastCache from http://www.boostware.com/hardware/internet/fastcache.html, although I did not try it out myself yet. The reason being: I see a lot of reports about trojans and stuff that is related to fci.exe ... which happens to be the filename of FastCache. If anyone is brave enough to try it out in a safe environment, please report back here.
[Update] The author's website seems to be http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/fc.htm
It's not available for downloading anymore... any suggestions?
Hear, hear!!
This program is no longer available for download
Actual you still can get it from this website.
http://www.filehippo.com/download_google_web_accelerator/
Even after installation it(GWA) no longer works.
Google Web Accelerator has now been discontinued and it does not work at all, so unless the editor includes some software that can do the same job there is no reason in keeping this category up
What about this product: SG TCP Optimizer?
More info here: http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php
Note: Advanced System Protector (from http://www.systweak.com/) "believes"
that SG TCP Optimizer contains a malware species...
Users in India can get ONSPEED for free at this site : www.yuvayantra.com
ONSPEED is a great program and works on broadband too.
For people on slower networks there are some free alternatives.
1)The Opera Turbo feature in Opera 10 beta is great and development is on.
2)Toonel (http://toonel.net/) is one option. It requires Java and one inconvenience is that it does not work in the background. However u can use it along with trayit to remove that discomfort.
3)Trafficcompressor (http://www.tcompressor.com/) is a limited version of its shareware counterpart. Haven't tried it much.
Note that the above proxy-based software have another benefit that they will compress traffic(useful for users who are on broadband limits like I have a 1.5 gb monthly limit)
For local tweaks the best software is TCPoptimizer . cFOSSpeed(alas not free) is great too.
DNS Caching helps to improve response slightly. It is enabled by default in Google Chrome or I found a another program mentioned below (fastcache). dns caching may have security concerns. Use a good antivirus along with it
Finally things like adblocking, flashblocking and turning off javascript(as in Noscript addon for firefox) can help u as well.
Hope this helps.
There's always fasterfox and fasterfox lite for firefox.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=fasterfox&cat=all
It was me who posted the comment below. I too used to use fasterfox without the prefetching but its not developed any more.(Still works on ff3 with tweaks) Now fasterfox lite seems to be in development. Thats good.
I tried this speed guide TCP Optimizer and it worked really well for improving web page downloading speeds. But I soon got system error messages that resulted in my system being shut down, after every use. And I am 1000% postive it is associated with this download. Because when i delected the speedguide optimizer which wasn't easy to do, my system problems cleared up ASAP.
I have been using TweakNow PowerPack 2009. And its good.
Is there ANYTHING to accelerate RURAL MISSOURI with their very very s..l..o..w dial up,through 'barely buried' telephone lines??? (And YES, we finally got electricity...but still have lagoons...SERIOUSLY!!)
im finding another one
This is an indirect comment.
I am looking for a program that helps me manage and monitor my internet connection better than the tools in Windows.
When I start my PC I want it to automatically connect me and deal with any initial connection problems I might have such as partial connection problems when a disconnection and reconnection is needed.
If my ISP disconnects me I want it to reconnect after a set delay. If the the connection attempt failed I want a reconnect attempt after a set time period.
I want to know all the programs that are uploading or downloading with a history log.
I want statistics to help me assess the quality of my ISP.
I have been searching for such an application for some time but nothing does it all.
Can you give me names of applications that do these things? Thanks in advance.
As this page is not visited that often you would get a more comprehensive response if you post in the forum.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/freeware-forum/internet-webware-and-netw...
I've been using this SW for years without any system stability issues, nor uninstalling (use exe dirrectly, no instalation)
Google internet accelerator not available any more.
DEC 1 2009
The download is still available for the Filehippo link above and also Softpedia.
Use Opera Turbo browser.
But the service itself doesn't work. You can't connect to Google's servers.
dont try propel. have no support at all
thank u
Hi fellow gizmo heads, since this is the only web accelerator recommendation, but the comments cast doubt that it is still functional, can we get other options and/or an update of this page. Thanks. And again for all your good work.