How to Accelerate Your Dial-Up Internet Access

Despite the claims of some clothing manufacturers, one size does not fit all.

Rarely will there be one thing that’s right for all people.

But if you’re one of our dial-up Internet access customers, the exception may be EarthLink Accelerator.

I feel very confident recommending that you go get it – now! – if you’re not already using it.

Why?

Because it takes the one primarily limitation of dial-up Internet service (speed) and helps you optimize it. With very little downside. Who doesn’t want to go faster?

This dial-up accelerator lets you surf up to 7x faster than you can with a standard dial-up Internet connection. No, accelerated dial-up is still not high-speed cable Internet or DSL, but it’s a noticeable improvement in dial-up Internet speed.

Accelerator also gives you easy-to-use options to help you use it in a way that works best for you. It’s even easy to turn off and on if you don’t feel like using it for some period of time.

And, I forgot to mention, it’s FREE! (Not trying to sell you anything.)

There are two ways to get our dial-up accelerator:

1. You can download Accelerator as part of our EarthLink Access Software (Windows only). You can learn more by reading this previous blog post about the dial-up Internet access software.
2. You can download our dial-up Accelerator as a stand-alone program for both Windows & Mac computers.

Unless you have a very old computer that doesn’t have a current operating system, Accelerator should be compatible for you, but click the Learn More link on the download page to see the System Requirements if you aren’t sure.

How does EarthLink Accelerator work?

EarthLink Accelerator makes Web surfing faster for dial-up users in three ways:

1. Compression—Accelerator compresses Web pages, which then load a lot faster than they would otherwise (though they probably won’t look any different to you). Text on the pages isn’t affected, and changes to image quality are very small unless you have image acceleration set to High or Maximum.
2. Caching—Accelerator pays attention to which Web pages you visit the most, then stores (or “caches”) part or all of those pages on your computer. The next time you visit a cached page, it can load faster using those locally stored page elements. The more you use Accelerator, the better it works on your favorite Web pages.
3. Smart Connections—EarthLink Accelerator works around certain limitations of Internet protocols, reducing unnecessary delays.

Here’s what Accelerator will speed up for you:

• All  Web page text, HTML, markup, & JavaScript
• Most online graphics & photos
• All browser-based emails (EarthLink Web Mail) and most email viewed in an email program on your computer

Here’s what Accelerator can’t speed up for you:

• Streaming media, audio & video
• Secure pages (e.g. online banking & shopping checkout)
• FTP downloads

Accelerator & Web Page Images & Graphics

One of the 3 ways Accelerator speeds up your dial-up experience is by compressing web pages. The one aspect of your surfing that can be negatively affected by this compression is the visual quality of images.

That’s why Accelerator has 5 graphic acceleration settings – so you can balance your desire for faster and faster dial-up surfing with your interest in high quality images.

5 Graphic Acceleration Settings & Image Quality

• Minimum Speed: maintains original image quality
• Low: reduces image quality very slightly
• Medium (default setting): reduces image quality slightly
• High: reduces image quality moderately
• Maximum Speed: reduces image quality significantly

For most people, we recommend the default Medium setting, because it improves your surfing speed significantly while only slightly reducing image quality.

When using this setting, EarthLink Accelerator typically increases your experience between two and three times that of regular dial-up Internet access.

If you would like to maintain your original image quality, you can set the graphics setting to Minimum Speed and still surf significantly faster than regular dial-up.

In addition, you can set the acceleration to one of the higher levels and when you encounter an image you want to see better, right-click the mouse on the image and choose Refresh Picture with Full Quality. You can also select Refresh Page with Full Quality to improve the quality of all the graphics on the page at once.

To learn more, go to the EarthLink Accelerator page and click the Learn More link.

Then download click the Windows Download or Mac Download link to get the version of Accelerator that’s right for your computer.

You’ll improve your dial-up speed and your enjoyment of the Internet.

So get going – faster!