I'll never take broadband for granted again

I'm currently deployed to Afghanistan and the internet here blows, which is understandable considering I'm in the middle of a friggin desert. Anyway, I've been trying to figure out ways to make best use of limited bandwidth and was looking for any tips or tricks? The things I have figured out are as follows: started using a stand alone download manager (to be specific I'm using DAM) which makes it easier to pause/resume downloads when I can't finish them, torrents (the legal kind) are a life saver, I have a new loathing for anything that uses flash and have started using flash block on chrome, sites that also have "mobile" versions are awesome. A little more about the network, it uses a static IP and I think mac address filtering so I'm limited to using one laptop (haven't checked that though). It's a wired connection only, I managed to scrounge up a wireless router someone left behind here but can't seem to get it to work (likely the router is busted though, it's in rough shape, the desert plays hell on electronics). My typical download speed is somewhere between 10 and 50kbps with a slightly slower upload. So anyone have any suggestions for things I could do to make better use of my limited bandwidth?

 

First, Thank you for your service. Without persons like you we can not live like we do here.

Make sure your using ad blockers, and maybe script killer for all of the animation.

As far as the router goes. If they are using mac filtering you will need to clone your mac address into the router to give it a chance. May try resetting the router by holding the reset button down for 15 sec while powering up the router.

 

Thank you, flash block does a good job of eliminating about 90% of the adds, I'll have to look at a script killer though. My main hangup now is that it's an old netgear router, and for some reason it REFUSES to let me at any kind of configuration menu's until I run through it's stupid little internet connection wizard, which never works because I can't get at the mac address filtering options to make it work...I'd like to punch the guy who thought this up.

 

Using DAP but only for files... for pages not sure what more to suggest but you might have a look and see what you have eating bandwidth already. Maybe some auto updates or messaging software?

 

First things first dont plug the router into any kind of internet jsut try to get to the web management, just plug your laptop into the router nothing else. try 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 and look up the default router password list on google. If that works update the firmware and continue testing.

 

When it says unlimited doesn't mean the speed will be given to you at full or the speed will be fast. Now i don't know where you connected your net to nor know how military works, but i think you possibly connected to your own military's communication center that maybe using sates or the type of "narrowed band-broadband" landline. They could be the one speed throttle your net bandwidth for their own urgent use.

Could go find out more about this net of yours asking those administrates the net.

 

Are you using EdgeCity. If so I have a number of little tweaks and hacks for their "service" that I learned when I was stationed on a FOB with them. I eventually got sick of their crap and ordered my own Bentley Walker satellite system with the other folks in my unit. Best thing I ever did.

 

MVPS hosts file to block ad' and spyware internally. If the machine tries to connect to a blacklisted website, it will just do a loopback meaning no connection is made and no bandwidth used.

Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File

 

Hosts file is the old way to do it, you can still use one for some bonus malware prevention but for cutting down on web bloat its not so great.

The way adblock plus does it is a much cleaner way, it strips most of the elements from the html before the browser renderer parses them. It is also pretty good about not leaving a bunch of dead image boxes and such in the pages.

I would advise noscript as well, it will cut down on a lot of spurious hits to extra hosts which can be brutal on low bandwidth lines with high latency. You'll spend a little bit of learning time on your usual sites to enable some of their "features" but thats the only real downside.

Those two combined will save some bandwidth and really cut down the overhead on some of the terrible but popular sites out there. I can think of quite a few that have dozens of extra unique dns lookups and scripts that grab hundreds of extra kb of code per page for all the ad serving garbage.

Done quite a bit of "field testing" out in the boonies where my cell phone gets the same kind of bandwidth, though maybe not so bad in latency.

 

Yes true, but Adblock and no script will only protect you in a browser. Hosts file will stop any blacklisted address throughout Windows. That means ads, spyware, trojans or malicious codes that connect back to a website.

I use the MVPS hosts file and adblock to clean blocked entries and no script for extra protection. I recommend you do too.

 

agreed. Im using all three... with added layer at FW

 

For the truly nasty stuff its better off to block outside the system with a real firewall blacklist, getting around the hosts file or windows firepaper is old hat for malware already.

To get the most out of browsing on a limited connection the hosts file alone just doesn't do a whole lot these days, though it can't hurt.

 

I'm surprised no-one yet mentioned Opera and it's Turbo mode for browsing.

I have it on my laptops but I rarely use it (xmarks support, where are you). It is unbeatable with really slow connections, definitely worth to try.