Speed up your downloads for free

jjones | Guides | 18/12/2008 14:36pm
8 Comments

Windows Vista was always intended to make the most of broadband. That’s why Windows Sidebar gadgets were designed, so they could get updates direct from the internet to display on your desktop. These work regardless of how fast your broadband is, but when it comes to downloading files, particularly large ones such as films or music, a faster and often more expensive, connection is required – at least that’s what ISPs might have you believe. The truth is that with some tweaking you can boost your connection speeds to ensure downloads reach your desktop faster – and that’s good for your electricity bills, too, because you won’t have to rely on all-night transfers any more.

The first thing to establish is your current download speed, because you need a baseline from which to work to ensure you’re getting any benefit from broadband tweaks. The best speed testers on the net are www.speedtest.net or www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk. Make sure you test at different points in a day to get a realistic average. You’ll find your real speed, unless you live very close to your BT exchange, is very different from what your ISP claims. If you’re on cable rather than ADSL you will fare better, however, as distance isn’t such an issue.

IE7 HACKS Tweaking the registry can bolster your downloads when using Internet Explorer 7

Broadband tweaks

Whatever download speed your connection gives, you should be able to boost it through some basic tweaks. First off, make sure your broadband router is coming off the master socket in your home (if you’re on ADSL). This gives you the best signal quality because internal extension sockets, even if quite short, increase the level of noise on your line, degrading your broadband signal and slowing your downloads. Secondly, you can gain a little speed by detaching the orange and white bell wire from your sockets. If you have modern phones they still ring without this wire.

Another way of speeding up your downloads is to tinker with your browser. You can easily increase the number of simultaneous downloads in Internet Explorer 7 by tweaking this registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings. You can find this by typing ‘regedit’ into Start Search. Once the key is selected, right-click the empty space, and create a new DWord (32-bit) value by choosing New > DWord Value. Rename it MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server. Double-click this and modify the value to your preferred number of downloads, such as three. Create another DWord: MaxConnectionsPerServer. Double-click this and modify the value to something like three. Restart IE7 and you’ll have more simultaneous downloads running. You can also increase the maximum number of connections from IE7’s default of two, to 16, so you can connect to more servers at once and speed up your downloads. Internet Explorer doesn’t set the max connections higher because if everyone used more connections, the internet would slow down. Type the below key into Notepad, save it as ieregedit.reg. and copy into the registry:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]

“MaxConnectionsPerServer”=dword:00000010
“MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server”=dword:0000010

Download accelerators

There are dozens of so-called download accelerator applications, but they have a bad reputation for doing almost nothing to boost downloads or even harbouring spyware. One successful free application, however, is Download Accelerator Plus, commonly known as DAP (http://www.speedbit.com/dap). DAP increases the number of connections to allow for faster downloading and has a feature that can fix broken download links and enables you to resume any download you’ve aborted before.

SPEED UP A good download accelerator can claw back minutes of your time on large files

Get files faster with BitTorrent

1 INSTALL Install the BitTorrent application from http://www.bittorrent.com and you’ll be ready to download files as soon as you’ve set it for your connection. You’ll also need a place to get files. Visit sites such as beta.legaltorrents.com or www.publicdomaintorrents.com.

2 TEST Once a torrent has downloaded the BitTorrent client knows where to find the file online and downloads it. It’s unlikely you’re configured for a speedy download, though. Test your connection in Options > Speed Test > Run speed
test.

3 FORWARD PORTS Now you know your optimum speed, so you’ll need to enter those values in BitTorrent’s Preferences and forward your router’s ports to enable BitTorrent traffic. Take a look at www.portforward.com to find out the setting you need for your particular router.

4 FIREWALL RULE Once you’ve entered the port number into your router’s Services section, you’ll have a port open to allow connections from other users – but you need a rule to prevent the traffic being blocked by the firewall. Create a custom rule using the port value you obtained at Portfoward.com.

5 DOWNLOAD Go back into BitTorrent and under Preferences > Connection enter the specific port number into the Listening Port field then click Apply. This will now allow BitTorrent to use that port for traffic and your downloads should display a green confirmation tick, showing they are working at their best. You should enable UPnP connections for best performance.

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