Options

When you choose Options, the following window appears:

The iPrimus iSpeed Options window has four tabs:

• Graphics and Ads
• Pop-up Windows
• Temporary Files
• Advanced

Note: The Options window allows you to enable/disable Advertising Blocking and Pop-up Blocking features. These features may already be offered by your ISP service, in which case, they may not be available in your iPrimus iSpeed. If this is so, then refer to your ISP vendor for detailed information on Advertising Blocking and Pop-up Blocking.

Graphics and Ads Tab

Propel accelerates the downloading of Web page images by first pre-compressing the graphics they contain.

By default graphic images are delivered to your Web page in slightly compressed form (High acceleration, third option) that balances speed of delivery with graphics quality. However, there are four other Graphic Image Acceleration options. Here is a summary of all of the options:

Low acceleration. This setting maintains the original quality of the graphics on the Web pages you view. You will still get good overall acceleration because iPrimus iSpeed speeds up text, HTML, and some graphics through a technique called lossless compression, but graphics acceleration will be limited to about 1.2X (20% improvement with no loss of quality).

Medium acceleration. At this setting you get better graphics acceleration (2.0X or 100% improvement) with minimal effect on the actual appearance of the image.

High acceleration. This setting has increased acceleration with slightly more image quality degradation. It has usable graphic setting of approximately 3.0X improvement.

Very High acceleration. Even more graphics compression (~6.0X).

Maximum acceleration. This is the maximum or fastest graphics acceleration setting. At this level, you will find the typical Web page with lots of graphics appearing very significantly faster than without iPrimus iSpeed. However, there is a trade-off in that most graphics will be slightly fuzzy (~9.0X). In addition, some pages have functional graphic elements that can be affected by loss of color. (Please consider trying several levels so you can find the one that best suits your needs.)

As you move the slider between the various graphic acceleration level options, you'll notice the three images changing. These changes reflect - in fact, they actually exaggerate - the effect graphics acceleration has on the images.

Block banner ads and other in-page advertisements. Enabling this check box will block advertisements presented as banners as well as ad coupons within a page. When blocked, the advertisement is grayed out.

Note: When you first install iPrimus iSpeed and have ad blocking activated, you might see advertisements in web pages that you frequently visit. This is because those web pages are already stored in your web browser's cache. Ad blocking is operational, however, only new ads that you have not seen before will appear as gray. To make all ads appear gray, you need to clear the cache of your web browser as well as iPrimus iSpeed.

Viewing a Page with different Graphics Acceleration Settings

If you are using a graphics acceleration option above Low Acceleration and you want to view the page at, say, original quality, change to the higher-quality setting in the Graphics and Ads tab following these procedures:

The images in the refreshed (or reloaded) URL will reflect your new settings.

Note: Do not use refresh options on recently viewed pages, changing the Graphic Image Acceleration setting will not affect these pages if you look at them again. For example, if you view Page A at Maximum acceleration, then switch to Medium acceleration, then view Page B, page B will be at Medium acceleration. However, if you then view Page A, only elements of the page which have changed since you last viewed it will appear at Medium acceleration.

Refreshing an Image or Page with Internet Explorer
If you are using Internet Explorer, there is an easier way to retrieve the original image or Web page. Simply move your mouse over an image on a Web page and click the right mouse button. You'll see that two new options are available:

• Refresh Page with Full Quality. This option gets the full quality of the original images for the current page.
• Refresh Picture with Full Quality. This option is only available when your mouse is over a graphic. If you select this option, iPrimus iSpeed will replace the compressed graphic image with an original quality version. Depending on the size of the image, this may only take a few moments. When the iPrimus iSpeed icon arrows stop moving, the new image is in place. In many, but not all cases, the difference will be noticeable.
  
  Note: When you first install iPrimus iSpeed, it is necessary to close and then restart IE in order to have the Refresh Page and Refresh Picture right-click menu options available.

Pop-up Windows Tab

The Block Pop-Up Window option prevents pop-up windows from appearing. Pop-up windows can either be commercial advertisement or “expected content”, such as a streaming video, side-bar information, interactive dialog (questionnaires or entry forms), and some email, especially web-based email.

Note: The blocking pop-up windows option compares the link that the user is clicking on and the URL of the window being launched by the web site. If the URL is the same, then iPrimus iSpeed allows the pop-up window to appear. However, for some web-based email, the Exchange Web Edition (email server) uses a javascript, which can interpret a false positive of links not equal to the URL of the window. Therefore, a web-based email is not allowed to appear.

Don't Block Pop-up Windows. You can set iPrimus iSpeed not to block pop-up windows by activating this radio button.

Block Pop-up Windows. To block pop-up windows, activate this radio button. When activated, any blocked pop-up window will briefly appear as:

When you have Block Pop-up activated and you want to view any pop-ups from this web site in the future, use the right-click button to display the "Allow pop-up from this site" option.

The "Allow pop-ups from this site" option will override the Block Pop-up feature for the current web site.

Another way to temporarily by-pass the Block Pop-up feature is to hold down the Control key (Ctrl) as you visit a web site that you know will display pop-up windows. If the content in the pop-up window is an advertisement, then a light-gray tint will replace the image.

Play a sound when a pop-up is blocked. Enabling this check box allows you to hear a sound every time a pop-up window is blocked. Once you have activated this button, you can choose between:

• Standard sound. - The Standard sound is the "chord" (.wav) in Windows.
• Custom sound. - The Custom sound allows you to pick a sound by clicking on the Pick Sound button. The Pick Sound window appears.

Select the sound you want, then click Open. You can then hear your selected sound by using the Test button.

Recently Blocked Pop-ups. This list window shows all web sites, domains, and URL addresses of pop-ups that iPrimus iSpeed has blocked. You can perform certain operations on the list of blocked pop-ups, which includes:

• Show This Pop-up - After selecting a URL, clicking this button will launch a pop-up window to display it.
• Allow Pop-ups from This Site - After selecting a URL address and clicking this button, iPrimus iSpeed will not block pop-up windows from the domain of the selected URL.
• Clear Above List - This option clears the list of blocked pop-ups.
• Edit List of Allowed Pop-ups - When you click on this button, the Allowed Pop-ups window appears.

The Allowed Pop-up window acts as a "white list" of acceptable web sites, domains, and URL addresses that you allow pop-ups. You can manage this whitelist by adding, replacing, and/or deleting. For example, this window shows that the web site of KRON4 (www.kron4.com) is allowed to display pop-ups of streaming videos for news clips.

Temporary Files Tab

This option allows you to change, at any time, the amount of disk space available for iPrimus iSpeed temporary files.

If you have sufficient free disk space, iPrimus iSpeed will set the default amount of disk space to 128 megabytes (MB). You can adjust this from a minimum of 20 MB up to a maximum amount allowed for your system. In the above example, the maximum is approximately 2 gigabytes (2040 MB).

If you generally visit only a few (<5) Web sites daily, the minimum settings may be sufficient. If you are an active Web surfer and regularly visit dozens or even hundreds of sites, a setting of at least 256 MB is recommended.

Delete Files. iPrimus iSpeed manages temporary files for you. However, a Delete Files... button is available in case you want to manually remove the temporary iPrimus iSpeed files stored on your system.

Note: Under normal operating conditions, there is no need for you to remove temporary iPrimus iSpeed files.

Advanced Tab

An Advanced tab displays the following window:

The following Advanced options are available:

Show Performance Summary Report. As a subscriber to iPrimus iSpeed, you can, at your option, regularly get a summary of the level of acceleration you are receiving. Summaries appear at the conclusion of a given dial-up session in a message that will briefly appear above the taskbar system tray icon. You can adjust the frequency with which these messages appear, ranging from "every time" to "never".

Port number. A "proxy server" is a technology that allows Web content to be pre-processed by another application before being sent to your browser. A proxy server that runs on the same machine as the Web browser is called a "local proxy server". iPrimus iSpeed is based on proxy server technology. Since it runs on the same computer as your Web browser, it qualifies as a local proxy server (sometimes called a "client proxy").

Client proxies have an address and a port number. iPrimus iSpeed uses an address of "localhost" and a port number that is determined by Propel; by default port 8080 is used.

iPrimus iSpeed automatically chooses a different port number if there are conflicts with other network applications that you have running on your computer. Under most circumstances, there is no need for you to specify a different port number. However you can specify any available port number in the range of 1025-65535. If you change the port number iPrimus iSpeed automatically restarts.

Note: If you are using Netscape, Opera, or Mozilla, see iPrimus iSpeed menu Help for additional details on setting, verifying, and removing proxy server settings.

Launch iPrimus iSpeed at startup. In the Advanced tab window you can change a default setting that launches iPrimus iSpeed every time your system starts up. This option is available in case of a need to isolate potential startup problems on your computer.

If you choose not to launch at startup, you can start iPrimus iSpeed from the Windows Start menu:

Programs -> {iPrimus iSpeed program group} -> Start iPrimus iSpeed

• Accelerate all connections.
• Only accelerate connections without proxy conflicts.

If you choose to accelerate all connections, all connections (including any with potential conflicts) will be temporarily reconfigured to be compatible with iPrimus iSpeed. This means that the iPrimus iSpeed proxy settings will be substituted for whatever settings may exist for that connection. Whenever you disable or exit iPrimus iSpeed, the original settings will be restored.

Accelerating connections that have proxy conflicts may or may not work. A good approach is to look at the list of incompatible connections.

• If you are not using any connections identified as having potential conflicts with iPrimus iSpeed, choose the "Only Accelerate Connections Without Proxy Conflicts" option.
  
• If you want to try accelerating a connection that has proxy conflicts with iPrimus iSpeed, choose the "Accelerate All Connections" option. If another software program is using a proxy for acceleration or other such services, substituting the Propel proxy settings may allow you to accelerate your Internet experience.
  
  However, if your Internet connection is dependent on another proxy (such as a firewall), accelerating that particular connection will most likely not succeed. (You can restore your system to the previous proxy setting by selecting Stop iPrimus iSpeed from the Windows Start menu.)
  
  

  Programs -> {iPrimus iSpeed program group} -> Stop iPrimus iSpeed