Download Accelerators

[locustfurnace]

Whoa...you guys gave a ton of info! My house is about 15 years old, so corroded telephones should NOT be a problem. Anyways, do the DNS cache and/or content proxy cache programs take up hard drive space? BTW, my ISP is Netzero, and if all you stated is true, then how can Netzero HiSpeed claim to achieve connections as fast as or near that of DSL through dial-up?

Don't always count on the contractors who built the house to have invested in high quality materials. Most homes are built by bids, whoever can bid the lowest, which usually means not the "top of the line" goods for the most part.
Telephone wiring has definitely become cheaper. Some contractors, who are builders, could incorrectly place electrical lines near telephone lines, which can cause RF interference. Also likely the telephone carrier installed lines after the house was built, Which could also have been placed in close proximity to the electrical lines.
Anyways...

Besides, you have to rem that computer ratings, are achieved in a lab, which perfect conditions exist. If a modem hits 56kbps in the lab, then its marketed as such. CD-ROM drives are notorious for this as well.

Netzero, AOL, Earthlink, etc... All offer some sort of "Hi-Speed" dial-up access I am sure. They do this with as stated already; compression.

Most web servers, which serve you web pages, can handle gzip compression. With newer web browsers, dial-up packages, they are all on the compression bandwagon. It works simply be telling the web server, of the web site you are visiting that your browser can accept data in gzip format. So now the web browser, will gzip what info it can, such as html, and send it to your web browser slightly smaller than its original size. In theory, this could save you some time. But if your adding the time it takes for the web server to compress and your web browser to uncompress, it's sometimes not that much faster. but the illusion of faster speeds is present.
Certain items on the web page are already compressed, such as jpegs, which may or may not be able to be further compressed, so there may not be a savings there.

As for the DNS cache, sure it takes up disk space, everything you do on the computer will and does take disk space. As for how much, its going to be small, very small. Less than a high quality jpeg or mp3.
you do realize that each time you surf the net your using disk space. Each web page you view gets stored on the computer in a cache. It can remain there til the cache completely fills up, or until you purge it.
If you are using Microsoft's default web browser settings, than it usually eats up 10% of the hard drives total space. Might be a large chunk if you have a larger hard drive. So its wise to adjust this setting to around 20 megs.