Thrilling Browsing Speed With Naviscope

Web users have always longed for faster Internet access. Speed in a cyber context translates as faster and more stable connects, increased data throughput so that pages load instantly and 60 MB game file demos that actually download in under 30 minutes! Well keep dreaming, because unless you have a broadband connection which doesn't have too many users, this "speed" will remain unreal.

You might think that surfing accelerators and throughput enhancers will help you overcome the problem. However, download accelerators only help bring a file from a Web site to your PC faster. During the process, the file is broken into segments that are later joined together on your PC. They don't increase browsing speed.

Browsing accelerators on the other hand download the links on a page you are viewing. Usually, when you are busy reading a page, your modem is idle. Browsing accelerators grab the rest of the links during this 'free' period. They remain configured to pre-load 1 level or more. Now when you click a link it appears; instantly.

One product that works across-platforms and can help you come out of your Net speed dream is Naviscope. This is basically a proxy server with its own cache. It modifies your Internet connection settings and points them to the local host (127.0.0.1) on port 81. If you have an NIC and a fixed IP address, then it routes requests to your IP address on port 81. You can also share the Naviscope connection with other users connected to your proxy server. For security reasons however, the software recommends against this. We recommend against it because your PC slows down as it tries to juggle between your own and remote page requests.

Naviscope pre-fetches pages to speed up page loading. By default, it grabs 10 pages with or without images and advertisements. It works particularly well with Win 9x and Internet Explorer; neither of which use the Web cache very efficiently. On Opera, the performance is so-so, because Opera (like Navigator/Communicator) has a very efficient cache-management system. The downside with Opera is that with Naviscope and too many open windows, you can get frequent crashes.

Naviscope modifies the POP email client settings and routes all requests to the local host. This prohibits access to any email server (e.g. Yahoo Mail) to send mails. This works fine with your ISP except with any email server because the service needs you to be server-authenticated before it sends email. You may disable Naviscope while using email. It's not a problem if you have an NIC and use a fixed IP address.

Naviscope is about 600 KB and is just two files; the actual program and a help file. You can block ads and choose to display nothing in the ad area, "AD" or only load the ad when you point to it with the mouse. You can also disallow pop-up windows. The utility also maintains a history of sites visited.

Before you install or run this utility, make sure that all open browser windows are closed. Or nothing will happen but for annoying error messages. Naviscope appears as a button in the System Tray, as well as a toolbar. If left to itself it also synchronises your system time to NIST (National Internet Time Standard) or Atomic Time.

The pop-up toolbar displays Resource Bars for average and peak transfer rates, ads blocked, pages pre-fetched, memory load, Atomic Clock settings, DNS cache hits and persistent connects. You can also check site loading with the included diagnostic tools. It is however recommended that you begin with the default settings, and then slowly tweak settings according to your needs.

One tab for Logging was disabled when we tried Naviscope. The Help file was useless as it presumed the tab was active! Also, it makes sense to purge the Naviscope cache (\Windows\Application Settings\Naviscope) weekly or you either load an old page or the software mysteriously seems to lock-up.

Naviscope is now available as a freeware. All in all, the pros far outweigh the cons. So download a copy today (615 kB, Win 9x/NT/2k/ME, free) from http://www.naviscope.com/download).