1.
Overview of MegaSPEED Web Accelerator
2.
Download and Installation Help
3.
Using MegaSPEED Web Accelerator
4.
Product Details
5.
Additional Assistance
Section
1 - Overview of MegaSPEED Web Accelerator
How
does IOLS MegaSPEED claim to be 5X
faster?
Web page performance is measured by the
amount of time it takes to download an
entire Web page into your browser. So,
when comparing the performance improvement
delivered by MegaSPEED Accelerator with an
unaccelerated Internet connection, we
configure two identical computers. Both
are connected to the Internet at the same
dial-up connection speed and both have the
same PC and Internet browser
configuration.
Using
an automated browsing measurement tool
(i.e. a surfing "bot"), both
computers visit the same Web pages
multiple times. In order to eliminate
variations in download speed caused by
various network factors, we take the
average times for downloading the same
page with and without MegaSPEED
Accelerator and compare the two averages
in order to determine the improvement
factor for a specific Web page (example:
www.amazon.com). 5X represents the
high-end of the frequently measured
averaged results.
If
you are particularly interested in the
topic of timing Web pages, here's a link
to a site that provides a stopwatch for
timing page loads and many other
interesting Internet timing tools: http://www.numion.com/Stopwatch/index.html
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How
does IOLS MegaSPEED's solution
compare to DSL or cable modem?
IOLS MegaSPEED is an affordable
software-only solution designed to
significantly enhance Web access over
low-speed (less than 200 kbps/second)
connections. By contrast, DSL and cable
modems provide high-speed Internet
connectivity using hardware solutions that
work with special telephone or cable
lines.
The
price for DSL or cable modem is
significantly higher than MegaSPEED
Accelerator. In addition to the higher
price, many areas simply do not have DSL
or cable Internet service available.
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What
are the privacy implications of using
MegaSPEED Accelerator?
Personally-identifiable Information on
Acceleration Servers
If you have a high level understanding of
how Acceleration works you may be
concerned that the Accelerator could be
used to track your browsing activities in
a way that could violate your privacy. We
recognize that your privacy is very
important, and therefore we have
implemented the Acceleration Service so
that personally-identifiable information
cannot be easily tracked or easily derived
from data within our server
infrastructure. When your Accelerator
client software connects to our
infrastructure, it identifies itself using
a unique client ID. Our infrastructure has
a database of client IDs that are
authorized to receive acceleration, but
that database does not contain any
personally-identifiable information
associated with the IDs, such as your
name, address, or email address. Further,
we have designed all of our server logging
features in such a way that no single log
contains a direct record of the Web sites
visited by specific clients.
Personally-identifiable information
regarding browsing activities is subject
to the Privacy Policy and can be derived
from information logged only by applying
special post-processing.
Accelerator Client/Server Communication
The Accelerator client software does not
transmit any historical record of your
browsing activities to our servers other
than non-user-identifiable summary timing
and compression information, and
diagnostic information. Such information
is used solely for overall system
performance monitoring and quality
assurance.
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Section
2 - Download and Installation Help
Why
can't I open the MegaSPEED Accelerator
installation file after I download it?
It is possible that the file extension
".exe" was somehow lost from the
MegaSPEED Accelerator installation file.
You can easily check and, if necessary,
remedy this situation. Here's how:
- First,
find the installation file you
downloaded. Unless you changed the
name during the installation process,
search for that. Use the Window's
Start menu: Start -> Search ->
For Files and Folders...
- When
you find the file, select it. The full
name of the file should be visible.
- If
the ".exe" extension
(without quotation marks) is missing,
add it. Click on the filename and use
your mouse to add the extension
".exe"
- You
should be able to double-click on the
file right in the Search Results
window to start the install.
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How
long will it take to download MegaSPEED
Accelerator?
Depending on the speed of your modem and
the processing speed of your computer,
downloading will take between 5-10
minutes. For example, a modem operating at
48kbps (kilobits per second) will download
MegaSPEED Accelerator in about 5 minutes
using a recent-vintage computer. Running
the install on your computer takes a
minute or less.
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Section
3 - Using MegaSPEED Web Accelerator
Is
MegaSPEED Accelerator installed, active,
and enabled on your computer?
If MegaSPEED Accelerator is installed and
active on your computer a small
accelerator icon will appear in the
Windows taskbar area (near the system
clock). If the Accelerator is active while
you are surfing the Internet, the
accelerator icon will constantly change
images. Try accessing a Web site and you
should see the icon flashing as web pages
load. If you are able to surf the Internet
but do not see the icon changing, there
are several possibilities:
- You
are accessing a Web site or other
content that MegaSPEED Accelerator
does not speed up. If you are not sure
what content can be accelerated, Click
Here for details on what MegaSPEED
Accelerator does and does not
accelerate.
- MegaSPEED
Accelerator is currently disabled on
your computer. If you see red lines
around and over the icon, it means
that the Accelerator is disabled.
- MegaSPEED
Accelerator or other software on your
system may require special
configuration. To review the list of
currently incompatible software or
software that may require special
handling, Click Here.
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How
do I change the image quality setting for
all images?
Right-click
on the MegaSPEED Web Accelerator taskbar
icon and select "Settings".
Select the "Image Quality" tab.
Adjust the slider bar to the desired image
quality settings. Press OK to save
the changes.
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How
do I start MegaSPEED Web Accelerator?
MegaSPEED
Web Accelerator is launched automatically
every time Windows starts. You do
not have to launch it manually.
A
MegaSPEED Web Accelerator icon appears in
the Windows system tray to show that it is
operating in the background.
If
the program was terminated, you can start
it up by going to your "Start
Menu" "Program Files"
"MegaSPEED" and selecting the
program from there.
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How
do I turn off the Pop-up Bocker?
Click
on the accelerator icon in the taskbar,
click on Pop-Up and disable it. If
you are going to websites that you need
the windows to pop-up, you could add them
to the white list so you won't need to
disable the pop-up blocker every time you
go there.
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How
do I uninstall MegaSPEED Accelerator?
Open
the "Start Menu". Open
"Settings". Open
"Control Panels". Finally
open "Add/Remove Programs".
Look for the MegaSPEED client and remove
it from there.
IMPORTANT:
If you are using a browser other than
Internet Explorer or Netscape with
MegaSPEED, you will need to manually
reconfigure the proxy settings for the
respective browser after uninstalling or
stopping MegaSPEED Accelerator in order to
continue using the Internet. See below for
further details.
Restoring a Browser's Proxy Address and
Port Number
If you are using a browser besides
Internet Explorer or Netscape when you
stop or uninstall MegaSPEED Accelerator
you will need to reset proxy settings to
their original values (or no values).
Until you do this, you will likely not be
able to access the Internet. Consult
your browser's documentation for
information on how this could be done.
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How
do I see the original graphic quality of
specific image or Web page?
If you are using Internet Explorer, simply
move your mouse over an image on a Web
page and click the right mouse button.
You'll see that two new options are
available:
Refresh Page with Full Quality.
Refresh Picture with Full Quality. When
your mouse is over a graphic.
If you select one of these options,
MegaSPEED Accelerator will replace the
compressed graphic image with an original
quality version. When the icon stops
changing, the new image is in place.
Note: When you first install MegaSPEED
Accelerator, it is necessary to close and
then restart IE in order to have the
Refresh Page and Refresh Picture
right-click menu options available.
These menu options are not available in
Netscape, Opera or Mozilla. Please follow
these steps.
1. Click on the Accelerator icon located
near your system clock. Go to Options and
adjust the Graphics Acceleration Level
completely to the right (original quality)
and click OK.
2. Hold down the Ctrl key and select R OR
Select Reload from the View menu. The
compressed graphic image will be replaced
with an original quality version.
3. Repeat step one and adjust the Graphics
Acceleration Level back to its setting.
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Section
4 - Product Details
How
do I use other browsers with my Web
Accelerator?
Netscape
Navigator is automatically configured to
use the MegaSPEED Accelerator. Use
Netscape as you normally would.
For
other browsers such as Opera and Mozilla,
MegaSPEED Web Accelerator works with any
web browser that allows you to specify an
HTTP proxy. You must set the HTTP
proxy host to be "127.0.0.1" and
the port number to be the local listening
port of the MegaSPEED Client (5400 by
default). Consult your browser's
documentation for information on how this
can be done.
What
types of Web content does MegaSPEED
accelerate?
MegaSPEED Web Accelerator significantly
speeds up web page access. To
achieve this speed up, proprietary
lossless compression is applied to text,
html, xml, javascript and style sheets
Proprietary image compression is applied
to gif images, jpeg images and Flash
content.
MegaSPEED
also accelerates email traffic (POP3 and
SMTP) using lossless compression.
MegaSPEED
does NOT speed up file downloads (over FTP
or file sharing programs), streaming
audio/video and HTTPS (secure web sites).
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Are
ad blockers, popup stoppers, personal
firewalls and other utilities compatible
with MegaSPEED Accelerator?
MegaSPEED is compatible with most ad
blockers, popup stoppers, personal
firewalls, and other utilities. In some
cases, minor configuration either of
MegaSPEED or other products is needed. In
other cases, MegaSPEED is not compatible.
If
you are receiving error messages from a
firewall please ensure the following ports
are allowed access:
5400 (127.0.0.1)
7000 (216.126.145.190)
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Does
MegaSPEED Web Accelerator speed up email
access?
Yes,
MegaSPEED automatically accelerates your
email traffic (POP3 and SMTP) for all
popular email clients such as Eudora,
Outlook, Outlook Express and Netscape
Mail. Other email clients should
work transparently as well.
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What
are the system requirements for MegaSPEED
Accelerator?
System Requirements
Below,
please find the suggested and minimum
system requirements beyond the basics of
an analog modem, a telephone line, and an
active Internet connection.
MegaSPEED
Accelerator can be installed on any of the
following operating systems:
- Windows
95b w/ Windsock2
- Windows
98
- Windows98SE
- Windows
Millennium Edition (Windows ME)
- Windows
NT 4.0
- Windows
2000
- Windows
XP
MegaSPEED
Web Accelerator requires at least Internet
Explorer 4.0 and Netscape 4.0 or any later
version of either browser.
Note
that the MegaSPEED Email Acceleration
component requires Windows 98 and above,
and that the MegaSPEED Pop-up Blocker
component requires Internet Explorer 5.0
and above.
Newer
versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer
are available free of charge through
Microsoft.
For
Windows 95 users: Currently,
Microsoft does not permit Windows 95 users
to install Internet Explorer 6 or greater,
however, Internet Explorer 5.5 is
available.
The
recommended system requirements for
MegaSPEED Web Accelerator are a Pentium
200MHz with 64MB of RAM and at least 5MB
of hard-disk space.
Internet
connection line speed in Kbps
(kilobits/second)
Minimum: 14.4 Kbps
Maximum: 200 Kbps
Regardless,
MegaSPEED Web Accelerator will work within
your current system configuration to
provide you with the best content
acceleration.
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I travel. Does MegaSPEED
Accelerator work anywhere I use my PC?
Yes.
If you are accessing the Internet through
an IOLS dial-up connection in the U.S. and
Canada and your system conforms to
MegaSPEED Accelerator system requirements
you should be able to get an accelerated
Internet experience.
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Section
5 - Additional Assistance
Contact Us
The
most effective way to obtain technical or
customer support is to first review the 3
guides we have provided (FAQ,
Troubleshooting,
and Product
Guide), which contains numerous
suggestions as well as instructions on
sending vitally important MegaSPEED
Accelerator diagnostic information.
If
the guides do not answer your questions,
the next effective thing to do is to email
our Technical Support Group at tech@iols.net
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