Program helps Web surfers avoid the World Wide Wait
suntimes.com
January 29, 1998
BY DON CRABB COMPUTER COLUMNIST
Let's see a show of hands. How many of you would like to surf the Web as much as 36 times faster than today? Oh, quite a few of you. But
short of buying a high-speed line costing a couple thousand a month or waiting for the less expensive asymmetric digital subscriber line
service from the phone company, what can you do that's effective and inexpensive?
You can try what I've been trying, Connectix Corp.'s new Surf Express software for Mac OS and Windows.
Surf Express, unlike other Web performance aids I've tried (IMSI Netaccelerator, Kissco Speed Surfer and Peaksoft Peak.Jet), is not simply
a Web content ''pre-fetcher.'' It does not speed Web access by just grabbing Web pages before you ask for them. Instead, Surf Express
works by using an intelligent disc cache and network proxy software to load your oft-visited Web pages much faster by paying attention to
which sites you visit often. Surf Express' cache replaces the low-performance version that your favorite browser installs.
Why should you care about this? Because this combo of high performance disc caching and network proxy software gives you as much as a
36-fold speed advantage over unaided Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. Surf Express also gives you a big speed boost
when locating pages by key words or phrases contained in recently viewed Web pages.
Surf Express works with Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator and Communicator from version 3.0 on.
I tested Surf Express using a Power Macintosh 6500/300, a Gateway 266MHz Pentium II, and a Dell 486/100 PC. I tried modems ranging
from a 14.4Kbps model up through a state-of-the-art K56Flex 56Kbps model. Here are my averaged results for surfing a set of 20
repeatedly visited Web sites using Internet Explorer 4.0, Netscape Navigator 4.0 and the Power Mac:
Although I did not get an average of the 36-times speed improvement claimed by Connectix (I did get more than 36-times speed improvement
on some single tests, though), Surf Express made Web surfing much more pleasurable, especially with slower modems, by dramatically
speeding up frequent Web page access.
Surf Express won't help you download large graphics files from Web sites faster, nor will it speed up your e-mail. But it really does jazz up
the speed of Web surfing, which makes it a Crabb's Best Buy.
Crabb's Bottom Line: Surf Express. Vendor: Connectix Corp. The Goods: Speeds Web page access by as much as 36 times.
Rating: 9.5. Platforms: Mac OS, Windows 95 or Windows NT (4.0 and later). URL: www.connectix.com. Street Price: $34.95. In
Short: Surf Express works reliably and in clever ways that its competitors can't.
Chicago Sun-Times computer columnist Don Crabb appears on the Connected page Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday and in Homelife on
Friday. His new book, FileMaker Pro for Windows and Mac (M & T Books, $34.95), is now available in bookstores. |
