Stuck on a Slow Dial-up Internet Connection?

In today's world of high-speed fiber-optic, cable and DSL home Internet connections, computer users still stuck on slow-as-molasses dial-up accounts might feel like the proverbial tortoise doing his best to outrace the hare - plugging along, slowly but steadily, hoping to win the race. But it doesn't have to be that why. While dial-up users will never see the blazing video and MP3 download speeds that their better-connected counterparts enjoy, there are a number of fast, easy - and best of all, free - tricks they can employ to make their Web browsing experience as quick as possible.

1. Switch from Microsoft Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox. Not only does Firefox (available at www.firefox.com) run smoother, load Web pages faster and keep you safer from online hack attacks, but you can customize it with a variety of free extensions to enhance your Web browsing experience even further - see step number two.

2. Download Flashblock, a free extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web browser ( the extension is available at http://flashblock.mozdev.org). Flashblock prevents Macromedia Flash content from loading on a Web page, replacing it instead with a box and a small Flash icon. Many ads today are made with Flash, and using Flashblock will help cut down on the number of ads bogging down your page-loading time. As an added bonus, if you decide you do want to load a Flash item (such as a game you want to play or an animation you want to watch) you can simply click the Flash icon to load it.

3. Turn off Java. While Sun's Java programming language has greatly benefited the Web with its wide variety of cross-platform programs, loading even the smallest Java programs can be a big hassle for Web surfers on dial-up connections. The setting to keep your browser from loading Java can be found by choosing "Options" (Mozilla Firefox) or "Internet Options" (Internet Explorer) under the Tools menu. Firefox users will see the box to uncheck immediately; Internet Explorer users must click the Security tab and scroll down to disable Java.

4. Turn off images. For those who are completely uninterested in pretty graphics and fancy layouts and who simply want the text of the pages they're looking at as quickly as possible - you know who you are - you can turn off images to browse even faster. Firefox users, go to "Options" under the Tools menu and uncheck the box to load images; Internet Explorer users, go to "Internet Options" under the Tools menu, click the "Advanced" tab and scroll down to disable image-loading.

5. Stop pages before they load all the way. There's no need to wait for an entire page to load when the link you're looking for is near the top and already up on your screen. Go ahead, hit the stop button and move on with where you're headed. A word of caution - don't do this when using shopping or banking Web sites, as preventing those pages from loading completely may interfere with your financial transactions.