You're wasting time and bandwidth each time you enter a Web address in your browser. Why? The Web's addressing system doesn't use names such as www.cnet.com. Those are for the convenience of people, who remember names better than numbers. The Web speaks IP (Internet Protocol) and understands only numbered IP addresses such as 216.200.247.133. (Just for fun, enter that number into the location field of your browser.)

When you type the name of a site into your browser, it first finds a server that holds a copy of the domain name system (DNS) database. The DNS server reads the domain name you entered and looks up the corresponding IP address, then substitutes that IP address for the domain name in the Web address you entered. Doesn't that sound like a big waste of time? Sometimes it can be.

To get around it, keep your own DNS database. You can store a list of host names and corresponding numeric IP addresses in a special text file (a cache file) on your hard disk called hosts. Once you've created the hosts file, your browser will get the addresses from there instead of from the DNS. You can even create shortcuts in that file that let you enter a short version of a long domain name, and your browser will still know where to go. Of course, this plan may backfire if one of your Web sites changes its service provider and its IP address. While that's rare, it does happen. We recommend updating this list once a month.

The easiest way to collect and cache those IP addresses is to download SpeedTec or TweakDUN. Their button-driven interfaces let you amass a hosts file without typing anything. Both programs are stable, inexpensive, and a snap to install and use.

Of course, if you like to take the long way around, you can build a hosts file yourself. First, you need to accumulate the IP addresses of the sites you're interested in. You can do this by pinging them.

 

1.	In Windows 98, click the Start button and select Run. Type command.
2.	In the Open window, type ping, followed by a site's name (for example, ping cnet.com).

In the first line of text, you'll find the site's IP address within brackets. Copy the number. Armed with an IP number and the domain name, you're ready to create your own hosts file.

 

1.	In Windows 98, click the Start button and select Programs/Accessories/Notepad.
2.	Type the IP address you just copied into the text file and follow it with a space and the domain name (for example, 216.200.247.133 cnet.com).
3.	Under the File menu, select Save and save the file in your Windows folder as "hosts" (not "hosts.txt").

Go back to your browser and type the nickname (in this case, cnet.com) in the location field, and you'll go straight to the IP address. You can shorten the process even more by abbreviating the site's name in your hosts file. For example, use nyt to get to the New York Times. And you can add optional comments to remind you of shortcuts. Enter a number sign and an equal sign (#=) before your comments.

Here are some examples:

209.188.151.128 HB #=enter HB in the browser for a shortcut to HotBot
204.162.96.2 IS #=enter IS in the browser for a shortcut to InfoSeek
207.46.130.45 MS #=enter MS in the browser for a shortcut to Microsoft

Change Your Home Page
Yes, something as simple as changing your home page really can speed up your connection time. Think about it this way. Do you need to log in to Netscape's or Microsoft's Web sites every time you open your browser? In fact, do you need to log in to any site at all? Probably not. Consider loading a blank page when you start up and not surfing until you enter the URL that you actually want to view.

To load a blank page in Netscape Communicator 4.x:

1.	Under the Edit menu, choose Preferences/Navigator.
2.	Under Navigator Starts With, select Blank Page.

In Navigator 3.x:

1.	Under the Options menu, select General Preferences and choose the Appearance tab.
2.	Under Browser Starts With, select Blank Page.

In Internet Explorer 5:

1.	Under the Tools menu, click Internet Options and select the General tab.
2.	In the Home Page dialog box, click Use Blank. The next time you open your browser, it will open the blank page file (about:blank).

In Internet Explorer 4:

1.	Under the View menu, select Options and choose the General tab.
2.	In the Home Page dialog box, click Use Blank. The next time you open your browser, it will open the blank page file.

Cut the Graphics
Of all the tweaks you can make, the biggest speed gains you're likely to see come from improving your browsing habits, which means you have to reduce the amount of junk moving down your wire. You really don't need to see every single graphic and every line of text from some huge, poorly designed page.

You have the power to stop the bandwidth busters. In midsurf, you can hit the Esc button or click the Stop icon at any stage. These provide momentary relief, but you might also cut out some text you want to read. A better idea is to change your browser settings to kill the clutter--and only the clutter. Do that, and you'll get text and get it fast.

To turn off graphics in Navigator 4.x:

1.	Go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2.	Select Advanced and uncheck Automatically Load Images.

To turn off graphics, animation, and sound in Internet Explorer 4:

1.	Go to the View menu, select Options, and choose the Advanced tab.
2.	Uncheck the appropriate boxes.

In Internet Explorer 5:

1.	Go to the Tools menu and select Internet Options.
2.	Choose the Advanced tab and uncheck the Multimedia settings.

Even if you've turned off the graphics, you won't be left in the dark. Many sites provide alternative text, which shows up to describe the graphics your browser doesn't display. The text's primary function is to let you know what the graphical links connect to. But if you need to see a navigational image map, click Navigator's image placeholder or right-click Internet Explorer's image placeholder and select Show Picture.

To get rid of Java in Navigator 4.x:

1.	Go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2.	Select Advanced and uncheck Enable Java.

To get rid of Java and ActiveX in Internet Explorer 4:

1.	Under the View menu, select Internet Options and the Security tab.
2.	Under the Internet Zone, choose Custom/Settings.
3.	Choose options that let you turn off or be warned about ActiveX Controls and Java applets.

To turn off Java in Internet Explorer 5:

1.	Under the Tools menu, select Internet Options and the Security tab.
2.	Click the Custom Level button.
3.	Choose options that let you turn off or be warned about ActiveX Controls and Java applets.

Augment Your Cache
If you're the kind of surfer who often revisits the same site several times in one session, this speed tweak is for you. When you visit Web pages, your browser stores HTML and graphics from those sites in a folder called a cache. The cache helps you get files fast when you hit the Back button because they're coming from your hard disk, not over a phone line. To see all the files currently stored in your cache folder, look in the browser folder (C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\default, for Netscape; or C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files, for IE 5).

To increase your cache size in Navigator 4.x:

1.	Under the Edit menu, select Preferences, double-click Advanced, and select Cache.
2.	Change the disk cache to 10,000K.

In Internet Explorer 4:

1.	Under the View menu, select Internet Options and choose the General tab.
2.	Under Temporary Internet Files, click Settings. Under "Amount of disk space to use," drag the slider to the right. The amount to use depends on the size of your hard disk, but it should be about 5 percent. (If you have relatively little RAM and visit graphic-intensive sites, add a bit more to your cache.)

In Internet Explorer 5:

1.	Under the Tools menu, select Internet Options and choose the General tab.
2.	Under Temporary Internet Files, click Settings. Under "Amount of disk space to use," drag the slider to the right. The amount to use should be about 5 percent of your hard disk.

If you surf a lot without returning to the same sites very often, it helps to purge the cache in the middle of your session.

To clear the cache in Navigator 4.x:

1.	Under the Edit menu, select Preferences, double-click Advanced, and select Cache.
2.	Click the Clear Memory Cache button.

In Internet Explorer 4:

1.	Under the View menu, select Options and choose the General tab.
2.	In the Temporary Internet Files dialog box, click Settings/Delete Files.

In Internet Explorer 5:

1.	Under the Tools menu, select Internet Options and choose the General tab.
2.	In the Temporary Internet Files section, click Delete Files and confirm the deletion.

Keep in mind that your browser's cache isn't selective. It just stores what you've already viewed. Smart caches (such as the disk and memory caches in your PC) read ahead, anticipating what you may ask for, so the information will be ready and waiting for you. That's the premise behind PeakJet 2000, a utility you can download and demo for free.

PeakJet 2000 can dramatically improve your online performance by browsing ahead while you read Web pages. The catch? The program may drag down your system if its processor speed is slower than 100 MHz and if it has less than 32MB of RAM.