Opinios Please!

[Tablemaster]

Hi Friends!

Does somebody tryed this program before?

http://www.proxyconn.com/

Please let me know.

Thanx in advance.....;)

~TM

[LeRoi]

Hi Tablemaster, :)

Good to see you. :thRt:

I have never used this program, but I feel sure you will get some opinions when more folks see this thread.

BTW, did you see this thread: http://www.mypcclinic.com/forum/index.php?...p?showtopic=701 (http://www.mypcclinic.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=701)

[Tablemaster]

What a wonderful surprise my friend!!...... :P

~ Tablemaster.

[LeRoi]

I was hoping you would come here today and see how your friends feel about you. :D

[shiekie]

Hi Tablemaster,

I have used Proxyconn and one other which I forget and did not find any appreciable speed up in my connection. In addition, because my connection was through a proxy, my "ePrompter" did not function properly or update. If you don't know ePrompter, it is a wonderful little "free" utility which will check up to 16 different email accounts for you (including AOL) and let you read those emails without the hassle of having to sign in to each account. If interested, you can find ePrompter Here (http://www.eprompter.com).

At one time, Proxyconn had a free trial for like a week so you could try it out during different times to see if it really made a difference.

[Amie]

Tablemaster.

If you spend any time on the Internet you've probably seen one of its banner ads, or received an email from Proxyconn. The Proxyconn service costs about $9 per month. You download a piece of software, install it, and then you're off speeding down the information superhighway at breakneck speeds. That's the theory.

Here's the reality.

Your absolute connection speed never changes. Whatever speed you connect to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is your connection speed. What Proxyconn promises is "increased surfing speed," which I interpret to mean, "You see the pages you want to see in the same time as if you were using a DSL account".

Here's how Proxyconn purports to get that done.

Banner ad removal.
Pop-up removal.
Using a proxy connection via a local host to provide improved caching of the websites you visit, making return visits faster.
Dedicated servers: The proxy connection reroutes HTTP requests to one of Proxyconn's six domestic US servers that will deliver HTTP data to you faster than your ISP.
Data compression: Data between your machine and their servers to increase the amount of data that reaches your PC.

How Proxyconn calculates speed

Proxyconn even goes as far as to show your "Effective Speed." This is a calculation of how fast Proxyconn thinks your connection is performing. In my experience, Proxyconn estimated my 44 Kbps connection was performing like a 181 Kbps connection. Having talked with the developer, the calculation is based on how much data is removed from the page via banner ads combined with the compression ratio, and the number of cached versus uncached pages visited. I wouldn't believe this number if Abe Lincoln did the math. It's just too subjective.

The truth about Proxyconn

Proxyconn claims to remove banners and kill pop-up. That's easy to notice and it works. However, there are hundreds of freeware alternatives that work just as well. So while that's nice, it's not worth the money.

The locally hosted proxy is true. HTTP requests are routed to IP address 127.0.0.1, which is your own PC. What we're supposed to believe happens after this is hard for an average user to prove or disprove. In this case, the local proxy server caches more webpages than Internet Explorer would normally. If the page isn't cached, the proxy server requests it from Proxyconn's own servers. HTTP data is compressed and returned to the local proxy server that decompressed that data and serves that to your Web browser.

What's wrong with this picture?

That all seems possible. But there are a few flaws. First, much Web content is already compressed, including broadband favorites like image, audio, and video file formats such as JPEG, MPEG, and MP3. So any attempt to recompress will have little value. Text can be compressed, but is quite small to begin with -- and remember normal HTML is just a text file with special characters. Proxyconn's "conventional wisdom" that a proxy server system is faster for cached data may also work against it. Users may get uncached data at slower speeds because there's a double request involved.

So, is Proxyconn service worth $9 per month? No. The nominal speed increases don't live up the advertising, and the additional money would be better spent on a true DSL connection. Proxyconn's website has changed the language on the site from "DSL speed" to "near broadband speed." So while it's harder to dispute Proxyconn's claims, it's not hard to figure out 181 Kbps is only 48 percent of my 384 Kbps DSL connection

[Tablemaster]

Thanx you friends for the info about thi topic...... :thRt:

~ Tablemaster.

[pjbealer]

I tried proxyconn but was not impressed for the cost. About 8 months ago I tried Propel Accelerator and still have it. It was $4.95 then but I think it has gone up a couple bucks. I got in on the launch price. I am on dialup and connect at 28800 and average 3.5 times that speed now, depending on how much compresssion you select for graphics. It has a pop up blocker, which I do not use because I use Mozilla's browser. I understand that Earthlink and NetZero now includes it with their Premium service, Earthlink at no extra cost. I recommend it for slow dialup like me.