Improving Modem Speed

OK, I'm a cynic. Worse still I'm a cynic with a broadband connection. So when I started looking into the question of whether you can significantly improve surfing speed with a modem, I must admit I was more than skeptical.

But after  a week of trying just about every technique available and every product I could get my hands on, I've almost changed my mind.

I say "almost" because because in certain areas, you can make a real improvement, while in other areas not much at all.

You can certainly dramatically improve your general surfing speed. No question about that.  You can double your speed, maybe even more.

When it comes to downloading files or email, the improvement possible is much less. Maybe nothing at all.

But doubling your surfing speed is not to be sneezed at. We are talking here about a major improvement. An improvement that can transform your Internet experience.

And here folks, is how you do it.

Gizmo's three step plan to modem surfing bliss

Step 1.  Get your system back to a known state by uninstalling any existing accelerators on your PC

There are literally dozens of accelerators on the market.  Some like GetRight are solid products while others like NetSonic are little more than just hosts for adware and a lot worse.

With broadband, the more reputable of these products can make a useful improvement in your Internet speed. However with a modem connection, the gains are likely to be modest.  Some products may even make your connection run slower.  If you are using products packed with adware and spyware, your connection will almost certainly run slower.

I suggest you start out your modem tweaking procedure by getting your PC back to a known state by uninstalling any accelerator products. At least you'll know where you stand.  Besides, in step 3 I'll tell you about some great free acceleration products that will do the job without the ads and the spyware.

So that's step 1 folks. Uninstall all those accelerators right now.

Then after you've removed any accelerators, run a scan using a reputable adware/spyware cleaner to ensure that all the components of the product have been uninstalled.

I recommend. SpyBot Search and Destroy and Ad-aware for this job. Both of these scanners are free and each works just fine.  If you want to be extra careful, you can run both products. You may be surprised what these products find.

Step 2   Tune your Windows TCP settings for Modem Use

This step involves tuning your Windows TCP parameters for efficient operation with a modem connection.

Now, the Windows default TCP settings for dial up connections work pretty well. This holds true for all Windows versions since 95. 

But you have no guarantee that at this moment you are actually using the default settings. Many applications (including the accelerators mentioned above) can secretly change your settings.

And even if you are using the Windows defaults, you may be able to squeeze a tad more performance by fine tuning the settings for your exact setup.

Now, this TCP tweaking business can get mighty technical but I'm going to show you a really easy way to do it.

I recommend you download a shareware product called TweakMaster and use it to check and tune your TCP settings.

It won't cost you anything - the full featured 30 day trial version will do the job just fine. You can download it from here: http://www.tweakmaster.com/

Once you've downloaded and installed TweakMaster, click here for instructions.

Step 3  Use an accelerator that works

OK, if you've completed steps 1 and 2 you now have a nice clean and well tuned setup. This alone should make your Internet connection run faster.

But further improvements are possible. Now you have a couple of options:

Option 1:  This route involves installing  some acceleration software that is known to work and is adware and spyware free.

I recommend the free browsing accelerator Naviscope and the free download manager Star Downloader   These products work together nicely and won't secretly mess around with your TCP settings. Besides, free is good.

Naviscope is basically a smart caching program with the added ability to block ads, popups, sound and other media overhead.  It takes a little bit of twiddling to get working at its best and I suggest you experiment with different settings until you find the best combination for you.  I also suggest you turn off the toolbar as it can get quite visually intrusive.

As an alternative to Naviscope and Internet Explorer you could use a faster browser.  The speed champs are currently Opera and Mozilla Firebird.  Amongst the Internet Explorer based browsers, the  Avant browser is the way to go for speed.  All these browsers are available for free though the free version of Opera is ad supported.

OK, you've now accelerated your browsing so let's look at improving your downloading. Here I recommend Star Downloader. It's really easy to use and it comes with a host of features including multiple concurrent downloads, auto-recovery of broken downloads, automatic mirror site searching, integration into all the major browsers and a whole lot more. It's an impressive product by any standards and given that it free, it is a standout recommendation.

While they are fine products, Naviscope and Star Downloader can by their nature, only produce a modest improvement in speed for modem users.  (Broadband is a different story.) 

On my system I realized a 28% improvement in browsing speed to previously visited web sites and a 16% improvement in download speed.

Not enormous but still valuable, particularly when you take into account that my system was already running about 20% faster as a result of the tuning in step 1 and 2 above.

You can try other reputable accelerators but you will not really gain too much more than using NaviScope and Star Downloader. Besides, it will probably cost you money.

If you are prepared to spend some money for faster browsing then you can do much better than spending it on this class of product. Head instead, to option 2.

Option 2   This option offers you the greatest improvement possible but unfortunately it costs. Now ain't that the way of the world.

This option is to use a commercial web based acceleration service.

There are a number of these around.  Propel is the best known and the cheapest. It was also the service that gave me the best results so we'll concentrate on it here though the my comments apply to other competing services.

If you are using Earthlink Plus or StarNet for your dial-up connection then you are already using Propel - it's built into your service.  You have nothing further to gain by installing it separately. You lucky guys already have the Rolls Royce of dial up connections.

Propel works by invisibly re-routing all your web requests via Propel's distributed network of servers. This means their network sits between your PC and whatever site you are trying to access.

This redirection is handled invisibly by free client software provided by Propel that you install on your PC.

Acceleration is achieved by on-the-fly compression between the client software on your PC and the Propel server network.

Further acceleration is achieved by smart caching and the maintenance of a persistent connection.

It all works surprisingly well.  Indeed, the improvement in browsing speed can be dramatic. Propel quotes figures like five times. Maybe. Subjectively I would say that it feels at least twice as fast  but that's good enough for me.

On the downside, the improvement is restricted to surfing. Download speeds are not accelerated. Nor will your email or FTP transfers run faster.

Then there is cost. The cheapest package costs around $5 month.

There is also a small loss in the quality of some images because of the compression. It's not enough to worry most users and besides, you can always right click any image and restore full quality.

You'll also need to be running Internet Explorer 5 or 6 or Netscape 4.7 or later.  It works fine with Opera, Mozilla and Mozilla Firebird but you'll have to set up the proxy settings manually.

And you shouldn't run NaviScope with Propel as their proxy settings conflict.   If you are a tech-head you can sort that conflict out but there is nothing to be gained by using both products.

So there you have the negatives, but putting those aside,  the dramatic browsing speed improvement really impressed me. As a broadband user I normally find surfing with a 56Kbps modem intolerable. Not so with Propel. In fact, on regularly visited sites, I was getting near broadband level performance from my modem connection.

Impressed? You bet. In fact I've subscribed to the service.

But please don't just take my word on this. We are talking about money here so you need to decide this one yourself.  Luckily, you can do this without spending a cent because Propel offers a seven day free trial. So click the link and go  see if it suits your needs.

NOTE: To utilize the 7 day free trial you have to sign up for a month using your credit card and then cancel within 7 days. A bit of a pain but it's worth it.  And the canceling works. I tried it out.

Well that's it folks. I'd love to know how you fared with these suggestions. How much speed improvement did you get? What TCP settings gave you the best results? Did you find much spyware.   Whatever, I'm interested. Just drop me a note at editor@techsupportalert.com

Gizmo

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