There's been a lot of hype lately around so-called web or internet accelerators. They are supposed to increase the speed of 3G modems by fine-tuning Windows network settings.

Are these "MTU-optimizing" web accelerators really efficient?

To start off, the key technical parameters of the TCP/IP protocol, such as MTU and TTL, are very close to optimal by default. Secondly, virtually no web accelerator provide meaningful details about their work. The user only sees a nice interface that tells him that "The Internet is now much faster". Finally, most of these programs come from unknown sources. The result is predictable - the actual effect of using all kinds of "web accelerators" does not meet user's expectations. It's quite obvious that the connection speed is primarily determined by two factors: the quality of connection provided by a modem and limitations on the ISP's end that the user cannot control.

Are there other ways to speed up page loading and save traffic? Yes. You need to lower the quality or amount of downloaded content.

Increased speed thanks to image compression

Images and Flash components account for the larger part of typical web browsing traffic. The idea is to lower the quality of images, thus effectively reducing their size. The Turbo mode of the Opera browser is a good example that utilizes this idea. According to Opera Software, it reduces the amount of source traffic by 80%, which results in a 5-fold reduction of the average page load time.

Good news for all Adguard users: starting from version 6.0, image compression will be available to all our users. It means that you will be able to use it in any browser.

Internet acceleration through ad blocking

Most sites contain banners, popups and other fairly useless elements that you can remove without affecting the original content and saving from 10% to 40% of traffic. This becomes possible with the help of special programs that remove ads from web pages. We recommend using Adguard, which works in all browsers.

Conclusion

The most efficient methods of web traffic optimization are ad blocking and the use of image compression tools. Apparently, using both of these techniques will produce the best effect. It's also clear that an ad blocker and an image compression tool may be called Internet accelerators. And if a user relies on a modem connection, we can also call it a modem accelerator, more or less. However, we shouldn't forget that none of such programs is a true accelerator - you can't make the Internet faster (physically), but you can optimize web content you load.