Speed up your browsing! (General Comments on Browsing Utilities and Companions)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	General Comments on Browsing Utilities and Companions
Date:	11/05/01 (146 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Speeds up browsing, Doesn't cost much

Disadvantages: Need a bit of techny nerd knowledge

No doubt there are as many different ways of using the internet as there are internet users. To this end, the advice I will give is based on someone, like myself, who uses the internet on a regular basis, and would be considered a heavy user. I'll try and list names of software packages where I can remember as well as give URLs (web addresses) of sites where you can get the software.

1) Know your software.

It doesn't matter which browser you use - Internet Explorer, Netscape or any other browser - your surfing efficiency can be increased by knowing some keyboard shortcuts, what "right clicking" will do and what hidden options are available. Setting up your browser to go straight to your most frequently visited page instantly cuts down on the amount of URL typing that you do. Again, knowing that instead of "left clicking" on a link to go to that page and then having to return to your previous site when done can be frustrating, so why not "right click" and "open in new window"?

2) Keep your computer "fit".

You may think that the only think that matters when browsing is the speed of your modem and internet connection, but this is not necessarily so. Having a hardware modem is better than having a software modem (a software modem is a modem that uses your computers processor to some of the work in processing the data whereas a hardware modem does all the work). A software modem is sometimes called a WinModem. Another point worth making is having the least amount of software that you can running in the background. Generally, keep your tray (bottom right corner of your screen beside the clock) as empty as possible because each little icon is a program running therefore using memory and processor resources. You'd be surprised at what's running in the background sometimes. These can be taken care of with the use of a shareware startup manager, or with Windows built in mana
ger (go to Start > run and type "msconfig" in the box, and then untick everything you don't want to start when you boot up your computer). I expect de-fragging your hard drive and all the usual PC housekeeping gubbins should help you as well.

3) Virus Software

If you are downloading a lot of files - especially zip or exe files, then a virus scanning program is paramount. As well as the more well known Norton and McAfee scanners which will cost you money, you can also get a free version from the web called InoculateIT which is meant to be every bit as good, and not such a hog on your computers resources as well a frequesntly updated. You can get it from: http://antivirus.cai.com/

4) TUCOWS, or The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software.

As the name might suggest, this is a web site dedicated to software that may be of use to you and your internet use. Not only does it have stuff like browsers, instant messengers, virus scanners etc. but also contains software for creating web sites, media programs for listening to music/watching video clips etc. Most of the software here is shareware/freeware/trial so you get to try before you buy. Simply go to http://www.tucows.com to find a mirror site closest to you.

5) Handy software to have at hand.

As a regular user of the internet, you see the same file types cropping up again and again. For example, if you're downloading lots of software, chances are it's zipped up requiring you to unzip it, or it's in a self extracting zip file. For the former, you'll need a compression program to unzip these files back into regular use (unless you're using Windows ME which enables you to use zip files as ordinary folders) and so I would recommend Winzip for this: http://www.winzip.com.

You might want a good graphics program to view pictures you download from the internet like Paint Shop Pro, or an image viewing utility like ACDSee or IrfanView
. These can be downloaded from TUCOWS. It can also be noted that Internet Explorer can view some graphics files (especially GIF ands JPEG files) and so you might not even need a seperate program.

6) File sharing.

With the amount of flat rate access etc. being thrown around at the moment, as well as the infamous 2 hour cutoff that a lot of companies are using, getting a download manager should be high on your list if you download lots of big files. This will help you resume interrupted downloads, and perhaps squeeze some extra speed out of your modem to get your downloads completed quicker. The two that immediately spring to mind are Getright and GoZilla. These are available from both http://www.getright.com and http://wwwgozilla.com respectively.

7) Browser plugins.

There are 4 main plugins out there: flash, shockwave, realplayer and quicktime. Most of these are used for displaying "streaming" media on your computer (i.e. media that you watch or listen to without actually downloading) although shockwave can be used for playing games as well. Realplayer is also more of a standalone program than a plugin, but is sometimes referred to as one. These are linked to your browser and launch automatically when called upon. Flash is the most popular and you should try to get that installed as soon as possible - the others are optional.

8) Internet magazines.

While not exactly what you would think of when trying to improve surfing efficiency, you can learn a lot from internet magazines. My personal favourite is .net magazine and its' website can be found at http://www.netmag.co.uk. This is worth hunting out as it has a CD on the front cover which contains a lot of the software I've mentioned during this opinion and could end up saving you many hours of slow downloads, as well as giving you fairly up to date news on what's happening on the internet. If you're interested, have a look at some of the
internet magazine opinions here on Dooyoo, and pick one that interests you.

Well, that sort of rounds me off for this topic, unless they produce a category that deals with the internet as a whole and not just browsing where I'll probably add to this and ask for it to be moved. I hope this is of help, and feel free to comment, or makil me if you have any further questions or queries.

Summary: