Download Accelerator Explained
With Internet connections getting faster every year, the amount of information that can be downloaded from the Internet has also grown rapidly. If you have a 56k modem, you can easily download software, drivers, and other files from the Internet. With an ADSL or cable connection, it's also quite practical to download large games, movies, or CDs. Even if you have a high bandwidth connection from your PC to the Internet, downloading a large file also requires a fast server that can send data as fast as you can receive it. While your computer only has to deal with one download at a time, in most cases, file servers usually must handle hundreds of downloads simultaneously. For this reason, your Internet connection is not the only thing that limits your download speeds, but also the file servers from which you are downloading the files.
What is a Download Accelerator?
Today, many software applications can help you improve download speeds by finding the fastest servers automatically. By using a fast server, you can make sure that you are really getting all available bandwidth out of your Internet connection. While most download accelerators will find the best server for common files, like software and drivers, the accelerators might not work equally well when you download a less popular file from a small site. Regardless of which download accelerator you are using, and what you are downloading, it is always a good idea to monitor the actual bandwidth usage so that you can determine if the server is fast enough and whether there are any other problems, such as delays or gaps reducing downloading speeds.
How Can You Monitor Bandwidth?SpeedUpMyPC monitors your Internet usage, or bandwidth, in real time and shows a graph of your bandwidth usage for up to one hour. This information can help you decide if a server is fast and reliable, or if you should use some other server instead. If you have a download accelerator software installed, you can use SpeedUpMyPC to verify that the download accelerator has really found the fastest server available. SpeedUpMyPC can also optimize your Internet and browser settings to improve the performance of your Internet connection. This, combined with a fast server, can often reduce download times considerably and will make it much easier to download large files without running into any problems.