Propel Internet Accelerator Review
Modem Speed Test & Internet Accelerator: Can You Get High Speed Dial-up?
If you're using a dial-up connection to the Internet, you no doubt wish you could speed up your modem connection.
Living on a rural island, I do not have access to ADSL or cable modems, and I longed for the high speed connection I had previously enjoyed in the city. However, I have been curious about a product that claims to significantly speed up any dial-up connection.
Propel's Accelerator can be used to speed up any dial-up connection or even slower DSL connections - they claim that nominal connection rates of between 14.4K and 200K can benefit from their software. In short, you can match Propel's software with any ISP you happen to use.
Propel speeds up your web browsing by intercepting the data from your modem before it hits your browser. It uses a combination of intelligent caching and, more particularly, compression of text, HTML, and image files. As well, the software creates a persistent connection between your modem and their servers, through which you have faster access to web material beyond.
In operation Propel is quite different from Netsonic, which just uses intelligent caching to speed up repeated visits to the same site. While return visits with Propel are faster because it uses caching too, it also speeds up the loading of first visits because of its image compression and persistent connections.
The idea was so intriguing that I decided to install Propel Accelerator and test it out on my 56K modem connection. The results were really quite amazing. I found there was a very noticeable feeling of speed once I installed the software. There are different levels of acceleration, and had a real sensation that web pages loaded more quickly as I stepped up the level of acceleration.
However, feeling the wind in the hair is one thing, but putting some cold hard numbers to the experience is quite another. So, I tested my modem connection at a couple of online bandwidth testing sites, both with my normal connection and with the acceleration software engaged at different levels. The results were consistently strong:
Modem Throughput Speed Test Test Site
Normal 56K modem
Propel DisabledMID - Level 3 acceleration MAX - Level 5 acceleration Bandwidth Place 39.1 Kbps 200.7 Kbps 570.2 Kbps CNET 32.7 Kbps 146.4 Kbps 405.4 Kbps The 5 levels of acceleration used to give increasingly faster browser loads correspond to higher ratios of image compression. But there lies the potential downside of using this software.
At the highest levels of compression, many graphics loaded into my browser in very rough shape - most were easily recognizable, but some were very blurred. This could pose a problem at sites with graphical navigation schemes.
But I found I could browse happily enough at the middle Level 3 compression without any desire to resort to reloading images. While some images were grainier, they were quite tolerable - plus the pages still loaded appreciably faster than they did with a normal modem connection.
Furthermore, Propel does have a solution. Right right click on a particular image and you can opt to reload just that image in full resolution or reload all the images on that page. Once cached, the hi-res images will reappear on future visits to the same site.
It will be a matter of taste for other users what level of image compression they are willing to accept as a trade-off for more speed.
Propel is not a cure all for modem connections, as it doesn't improve the speed of multimedia files, secure web connections (such as used at banking sites), or exe file downloads.
Facts About Propel
Propel is available to download for a 7-day free trial. They do require credit card information before you can download, but they don't charge the card until the trial period is over. If you do not want to keep the service you can simply cancel during that time.
Propel Accelerator costs either $4.95 per month or $44.95 on an annual basis. Download file size: 2.5MB
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However, it does provide a tangible and significant improvement to the lot of the dial-up surfer. It's just much more fun with the acceleration Propel offers than without.
In short - Propel's Accelerator is a hit and earns a Four Star rating. Perhaps more telling, it has also earned a permanent place on my computer to speed up my dial-up modem connections!
UPDATE: Since I first wrote this review I have continued to use Propel for my every-day access, and I would not be without it now. The test results given in the table above have been revised to reflect testing in January 2005 using Version 4.1.4. Interestingly, the results reflect a significant improvement over an earlier version of the software originally tested in July 2003. The results of the new version of the software improved on the scores of the older version by an average 199.7% for the MID Level 3 acceleration and 226.7% for MAX level 5. At these levels, the acceleration gives download speeds comparable to many cable and DSL broadband connections.
I dialed up and made a connection with a nominal rating of 50.6. I then tested the speed three times for each connection: without Propel enabled, with Propel enabled at Level 3, and with Propel enabled at Level 5. I cleared the browser cache and Propel's cache between each test. The numbers in the chart above are the average of the 3 results for each test.
Note that the results for the 56K modem with Propel disabled are much less than 56K. This is correct, since modems only have a theoretical 56K connection speed; a usual 56K modem connection is 45 to 50K. Even so, the actual transfer of data - measured in the tests above - is always less than the formal connection speed, for a number of technical reasons.
