After getting a bit fed up of slow downloads, I thought that I'd give a browser "accelerator" a bash. I found one through PCWorld.com. They rated netsonic quite highly (and it was free!).
I downloaded the program and started using it, at first there didn't seem to be any change in speed, however on subsequent revisits to sites the speed increase was in the order of 40-50% (roughly). After reading the installation guide a bit more, I realised that all the program does is stuff viewed pages into your hard drive and looks at possible links from the page that you are browsing, and stores them.
All fine and dandy - if you can put up with the seemingly constant barrage of adverts for the same rubbish, and constant enquiries "do you want to upgrade, etc.". These occur even when you are not logged on! This is incredibly annoying - there is an option to turn these ads off for 2 hours, which is no good to most people as I suspect most of us (I do anyway) leave my PC permanently switched on.
The idea, and acceleration, of the program is sound. It is heavily let down by the pop-ups.