Windows XP Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 38 Speed Up File Downloads

Don't wait any longer for slow
file downloads. Use this free program to accelerate them, regardless
of your connection speed.

No matter how fast your Internet
connection is, it's not fast enough. Whether
it's a pokey dial-up or a broadband connection, you
always have complaints and you always have a greater
need for speed.

This is particularly true when you're downloading
files, especially large ones. While there may be no way to physically
change your connection speed, you can get the free

Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) program
from SpeedBit (http://www.speedbit.com) to speed up your downloads
significantly, whether via FTP or HTTP.

The program accelerates your downloads in two ways. When you start to
download a file, DAP does a mirror search of all the servers that
carry the same file, identifies the fastest servers closest to you,
and then starts downloading from those servers instead of the one you
originally chose. It also sets up a multiconnection download,
downloading portions of the file from multiple fast servers
simultaneously and then reassembling the file when all the pieces are
on your PC. This makes the most efficient use of your available
bandwidth, because normally there are pauses and hesitations when you
download, and if you're downloading with multiple
connections there will be fewer of those pauses.

The program also resumes broken downloads; if for some reason your
connection is broken, it'll pick up where you left
off when you next connect to the Internet. Also useful is the
ZIP preview feature
that lets you preview the contents of ZIP-compressed files before you
download. And it'll schedule downloads for you as
well. For example, you can schedule downloads to take place
overnight, when you're away from your computer.

DAP is free, but the free version delivers ads inside the program.
For $19.95 you can get a version without the ads that also includes a
few minor extras, such as the ability to extract individual files
from within .zip archives, instead of extracting
the whole archive.