Q:56k Users,How to get a useable internets?

[XDanger]

My 15mb BB has been cut off so I'm using a mobile BB usb dongle that seems like 56k, Ive turned off pictures but Its still quite slow.

How can I speed things up?

I havent tried Ubuntu yet, Will that be quicker?

I want to use the minimum bandwidth to get to where I want also as this thing has a download limit.

I can download a different browser or linux distro from elsewhere so any ideas will be welcome.

[crainger]

Try Chrome, it's light and fast.

I dunno if you can do much though. You're at the mercy of your wireless BB provider now. ::(:

You could move to AU. We have 21Mbps wireless here. ::D:

[XDanger]

Oh, I thought your Chrome recommendations were irony...

I'll give it a go.

[crainger]

Why would it be irony?

[Runningman]

My 15mb BB has been cut off so I'm using a mobile BB usb dongle that seems like 56k, Ive turned off pictures but Its still quite slow.

How can I speed things up?

I havent tried Ubuntu yet, Will that be quicker?

I want to use the minimum bandwidth to get to where I want also as this thing has a download limit.

I can download a different browser or linux distro from elsewhere so any ideas will be welcome.

why not run IE7 with no addon support and turn off images (show pictures) in the tools menu

[XDanger]

Why would it be irony?

I thought it was supposed to be a bit of a shambles,

Downloaded it @ 4.5kb/s but turned out to be the downloader, I'll have to wait...

[crainger]

Chrome isn't a shambles. Not for me anyway. It's my main browser now. ::D:

[jeffmd]

chrome and firefox shouldnt perform any different over dialup.

What you really want, is a web accelerator service. Many cell phone companies use it for web phones, and I know there was a number of subscription services on the net that target dialup users but I am unable to find any now. What they did was offer a proxy service, where you tell your web browser to use them as a proxy. In turn, when you request web pages, the web services re compresses the images (it will also compress the html file. This ability is supported by normal http operation and depends on the web server used so this may or may not speed things up) to a user specified quality level to make them much smaller, and then sends it to the user over the slow connection. Your web page's images look abit crappier (or alot crappier if you have quality set real low, usualy ideal for web phone browsing when you pay by the kb) but is ultimately much faster.

[wysiwyg]

chrome and firefox shouldnt perform any different over dialup.

What you really want, is a web accelerator service. Many cell phone companies use it for web phones, and I know there was a number of subscription services on the net that target dialup users but I am unable to find any now. What they did was offer a proxy service, where you tell your web browser to use them as a proxy. In turn, when you request web pages, the web services re compresses the images (it will also compress the html file. This ability is supported by normal http operation and depends on the web server used so this may or may not speed things up) to a user specified quality level to make them much smaller, and then sends it to the user over the slow connection. Your web page's images look abit crappier (or alot crappier if you have quality set real low, usualy ideal for web phone browsing when you pay by the kb) but is ultimately much faster.

it isnt dial up though!! its usb boradband dongle that uses gsm i beleive

my friend has it on the 3 network, its costly to use, slow and unreliable

i prefer my 20mb fibre on virgin media anyday

[Bman212121]

I think what you almost need is some type of caching server. I've never used squid but EG used to talk about it all the time.

http://www.squid-cache.org/

You just want something that stores as much content as possible so it doesn't keep reloading the same things over and over again.

I would also try using IE7 with IE pro loaded. Turn on the AD blocker and flash blocker. All of the flash content will definitely slow down your browsing.

[crainger]

Or try IPCop. You'll need a spare PC, but it will also work as a firewall with caching proxy. Probably a little easier to configure than squid.