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Speeding up and tweaking your Internet connection is one of those subjects that continues to baffle so many people. The subject matter has become cluttered with misinformation, rumor, and confusion. It's like adding accessories to your car to make it run faster except you are adding things to your computer. If the work is done right, your car will benefit from it. If it's done the wrong way which there are a number of ways to, then it will do more harm than good.

Most people blame all of their connection speed problems on their modems but they are only one part of the connection process. Factors such as processor speed, available RAM, the condition of your phone line, the distance of your location from the telephone company, your ISP's equipment, Web traffic, and a site's popularity affects how quickly you can navigate the Internet from your home computer. Despite all of these numerous obstacles, here are a few steps to getting speedier connections:

• The first thing you want to do is perform some basic maintenance on your computer. Run tasks such as a disk defrag, scan disk, virus scan, spy ware scan, and clean up your recycle bin. More often than not a slow Internet connection is a sign that your computer is infected with viruses or other malware. Try deleting old and temporary files which are no longer used. The free space on your C: drive should always be than 10% of the total size or twice the installed RAM. A computer with regular maintenance operates much better than one with none at all.
• You may just need to perform an upgrade on your computer. If your computer is old and slow, it doesn't matter how fast of an Internet connection you have, your whole experience online and off will be slow.
• Next, look into optimizing your cache or temporary Internet files. This improves your overall Internet performance by not having the same file downloaded again and again. If a website puts a graphic on every page of their site, your computer will then only download it when it changes. If you delete the temporary files, that graphic needs to be downloaded again. If the cache is disabled, every time you visit that page, your computer will download that graphic every time. Look for the "Tools" button at the top of your web browser window and choose "Internet Options". Once there, click on the "Settings" button next to Temporary Internet Files and set "Check for newer versions" to "Automatically". The amount of disk space to use should be 2% of your total disk size or 512 MB.
• Don't bypass your router to increase connection speeds. Your average routers come with a firewall which makes it very difficult for hackers to access your home computer. If you don't use or need wireless internet then I recommend connecting your computer directly to the router. Your router will slow down your connection but only by a few milliseconds. Is it really worth having your computer hacked into for that increase in connection speed?
• Maybe you just suffer from poor internet connection service at your home. Call your Internet service provider and speak to a technician who can check from there without sending out a a tech rep.

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