Tired of dogged downloads and the World-Wide Wait? Everyone these days is clamoring to buy newer, faster modems, but many of us overlook a few simple changes to our web browsing habits that can make the World-Wide Wait turn into the World Wide Wow! Try a few of these for starters,
Turn off images when browsing:
Nothing slows down browsing like graphics heavy pages. A good webmaster knows how to limit the graphical content of the pages and almost every quality site has text based navigation options. Use them! You'll save plenty of time.
Open more than one browser window at a time:
This one is without out a doubt, the most commonly overlooked capability of a web browser. You can, and should, open several instances of your browser and have each one seeking out a page you're interested in. In Internet Explorer, simply choose "File" and "New Window", Netscape users must choose "File" and "New Browser". From there, have the new browser open a different site than the one you're downloading in the other window. This allows you to keep a steady stream of data coming through your connection, as all those pauses are filled by the other browser grabbing data for its download. (Note, this works great up until you open four or more instances of a browser window, after that, things tend to get very slow and crashes start to become very frequent, so it's best to keep this under four browsers at once.)
Print it out:
Looking at a huge document? Unless you have a photographic memory, it's best to print those pages out. Once the page is fully loaded into your browser, hit print, let it spool, and when the printing begins, move on to another page. Only read the short pages, print out anything over 2-3 pages. It's easier to reference them later. As an alternative, both Netscape and Internet Explorer let you save web pages to a file in text of html format. So, if the pages are very long, save them to your disk and read them later, by accessing the file in your browser or word processing program.
Change Cache settings:
Most web browsers by default compare the site you're downloading to any copies of it stored in your cache on the hard drive. If you know that the site you visit doesn't update very often, set your browser to never update the sites stored in the cache, since these pages are stored on the hard drive, they'll load faster than if you pull them off the ‘net. After week, dump your entire cache and start browsing with a fresh cache.
Pick a super search engine:
Don't bother jumping from one search engine to another hoping one will turn up the information you're in need of. Try a super search engine. A good example is Inference Find http://m5.inference.com/ifind/, which calls out to multiple search engines at once and compiles their results in an easily read and well categorized format. Or, try Quarterdeck's Webcompass, a software utility that does the same thing, but on a more detailed scale.
With these tips at hand, your web browsing experience should go from an agonizing wait, to an exciting race to capture all the Internet's riches ! Good luck! |
