Although the internet has been mainstream for over a decade now, high speed internet for everyone is still a distant dream. A huge number of users are still on dial-up. Those on broadband aren’t always satisfied with the speed either. Everyone desires a faster web. Google wants that too.
Having said that, there are always certain workarounds which could add some swiftness to our web browsing. This article talks about nine such tips. Some of the tips help to increase the speed of your internet connection while others are productivity hacks which help you to get things done on the web quickly. The end goal is to help you become a more productive internet user.
- Use Google Chrome
Google Chrome is without a doubt the fastest browser on the planet. It opens up quickly, doesn’t crash often and brings up web pages faster than other browsers.
Although it is still relatively new and doesn’t boast of features like Firefox, you should definitely use it as often as possible. I personally use both Firefox and Chrome and have found Chrome to be much better performance wise.
- Set up OpenDNS
OpenDNS is an excellent free service which not only speeds up your internet connection but also provides an extra layer of your security to your connection. Apart from that, it has some other cool features like parental filters, opening pages from keyword shortcuts, auto-correcting mistyped urls and more.
Here are the detailed instructions for setting it up on your computer.
- Learn Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts could speed up your internet browsing by a great deal. Be it your email, your feed reader or your browser, using only the keyboard to navigate will always save time.
Here is an excellent website called Keyxl which is like an online database for keyboard shortcuts. Just search for the app and you get the corresponding keyboard shortcuts. Be it Gmail, Google Reader, Firefox, Google Chrome or any other app you could think of, you’ll find the keyboard shortcuts for that app on this site.
- Use a Download Manager
- If you frequently download stuff from the web then a download manager could save you loads of time. A download manager usually comes with many advanced features which could make downloading files a breeze for you.
There are many good download managers out there which you could try. Lifehacker has a list of five best download managers. Go, take a look.
- Prefer reading in your feed reader
RSS feeds are a great way to consume lot of information at one place. It also saves the time you would take to visit all those sites separately. Hence try to get into the habit of using it more often to read content on the web.
- Use Tidyread or Readability Bookmarklet
If RSS is not your thing and you love visiting websites and blogs then you might consider using Tidyread or the Readability bookmarklet to speed up the rendering of web pages.
Both these apps strip the web pages off the heavy things like scripts, images etc and present content with better readability.
- Use the Hyperwords Firefox extension
Google Chrome may be faster but my love for Firefox isn’t gone yet. And it will remain my browser of choice until Chrome has extensions like Hyperwords.
Hyperwords adds loads of things to your right click inside the browser which provides easy access to a lot of information, thereby saving time and helping you become a more productive web surfer.
- Make Firefox faster
Staying with Firefox, those using it would know that it tends to become slow and nagging over time. But there are ways to make it faster. You could consider creating a new profile, uninstalling useless add-ons or clearing preferences of installed add-ons.
- Use a Password Manager & Form Filler
I have written about some awesome password managers before. Most of them come with built-in form fillers. Apart from securing your passwords, they save you time by filling web forms and quickly generating secure passwords for your new online accounts.
Cheers,
Abhijeet
 | Written on 7/9/2009 by Abhijeet Mukherjee. Abhijeet is an internet entrepreneur who loves writing about tech, productivity, blogging & making money online. Catch him at Jeet Blog and also subscribe to his weekly newsletter. | Photo Credit: star5112 |
