300kb/s on dial up!

[timmcat]

I've learnt to be very sceptical about utilities which are meant to enhance the speed of the internet (on dial up), however, came across Onspeed (http://www.onspeed.com) last night which is quite simply spectacular.
I believe it works via a proxy server which compresses the content of pages (text and images) - it fooled three bandwith meters I tested it on - with Onspeed disabled, a speed of around 43 to 45 kb/s - with Onspeed enabled, an effective speed of 280 to 400 kb/s. There is a slight degradation in the quality of graphics, but where quality is crucial it is easy to right click / disable / refresh to get your normal quality at your usual speed. Costs around £2 per month. There are some free trials around if you can find them on mag cover discs etc, but the official site seems to have discontinued this.

[BoeingBoy]

The original version had a lot of bugs and conflicts, however the new version now available does seem to work a lot better.

Having said that I am posting this on the wifes (my old) computer , without Onspeed, and I honestly can't say the speeds for PPRuNe aren't that different.

Also the Onspeed server tends to store your last viewed pages on its server so when you come back to a site you get an 'instant' display which you are supposed to be impressed with, but you then realise that you have to refresh the page thus nullifying the saving in time that you gained by using Onspeed.

I have coughed up my 25 quid for the year but I doubt that I will renew. I have also had a lot of software clashes in other areas since installing it. (But can't say for sure that it's due to Onspeed)

On the whole it's OK but the hassle of having it onboard at present outways the advantages.

BB:)

[timmcat]

Thought it worth reviving this as I have just come across the link for the free trial. (http://www.onspeed.com/download/trial/ONSPEED_download_trial.zip) This link does not seem to be readily available on the Onspeed site, but as the file is still there, I presume there are no legal implications.

[BoeingBoy]

Since writing my last post I was mailed an upgrade to the latest version.

This is a totally new interface and much simpler and better all round. I have had no software clashes and the only problem that I have had is that it will not allow me to log on to Bugzilla supplied through someone elses web space, but no problem.

If you want to view pictures at high quality in browsing then by the time that you get them you have not saved that much time, but otherwise it can speed things up a little.

Is it worth £25 per year? ...............hmmmm, the jury's out!

[The Nr Fairy]

The point's been made - if you cache content locally, of course you're going to get terrific download speeds - it's from your hard disk, all bar the changes.

The only way to get 300 kilobits per second download is to get cable or ADSL - as an example, my 512k ADSL service does 50kbytes / sec download.