Important update! We have recently reviewed and updated our Forum Rules and FAQs. Please take the time to familiarise yourself with the latest version.
Has anyone tried Onspeed?
82 replies
67.5K views

64 posts
www.onspeed.com*
I've seen this advertised in the press a lot and wondered if it is any good. Does anyone know if it works?
_________________________________
Official Insert By Martin
The following is an extract from my Cheapest Dial-up Internet Provider article
Also if you want to zip straight to broadband read theCheapest Broadband Provider article
Does OnSpeed Work?
OnSpeed is a heavily advertised service for dial-up users to use on top of their ISP, that claims to make your connection work at broadband speeds for £25 a year. Technically what it does, rather than speeding up your connection is decrease the amount of info you need to download. This does make that you receive using compression software. While this doesn’t come close to broadband speeds, most dial-up users say it does speed things up somewhat.
However the best feedback is what MoneySavers using it have and will write below!
*Affiliated link: Click via this link and a contribution is made to MoneySavingExpert.com, which helps it stay ad-free, sponsorship-free and free to use. This in no way impacts any editorial decisions (what I write), costs you anything or changes the product. For an identical link which doesn’t help the site go to https://www.onspeed.com. For more on how it works and the site’s non-profit driven ethical and financial policy read this
I've seen this advertised in the press a lot and wondered if it is any good. Does anyone know if it works?
_________________________________
Official Insert By Martin
The following is an extract from my Cheapest Dial-up Internet Provider article
Also if you want to zip straight to broadband read theCheapest Broadband Provider article
Does OnSpeed Work?
OnSpeed is a heavily advertised service for dial-up users to use on top of their ISP, that claims to make your connection work at broadband speeds for £25 a year. Technically what it does, rather than speeding up your connection is decrease the amount of info you need to download. This does make that you receive using compression software. While this doesn’t come close to broadband speeds, most dial-up users say it does speed things up somewhat.
However the best feedback is what MoneySavers using it have and will write below!
*Affiliated link: Click via this link and a contribution is made to MoneySavingExpert.com, which helps it stay ad-free, sponsorship-free and free to use. This in no way impacts any editorial decisions (what I write), costs you anything or changes the product. For an identical link which doesn’t help the site go to https://www.onspeed.com. For more on how it works and the site’s non-profit driven ethical and financial policy read this
0
Quick links
Essential Money | Who & Where are you? | Work & Benefits | Household and travel | Shopping & Freebies | About MSE | The MoneySavers Arms | Covid-19 & Coronavirus Support
Replies
See Computeravtive review: http://www.computeractive.co.uk/products/software/1153878
It only works for some types of files, it should work well for web pages, but not downloads.
Try the following link
http://www.onspeed.com/en/?MgM=afbchgfaa
It has 24 hours of online interactive support too which is really cool!
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=41477
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search.html?searchid=259242
The biggest difference is the quality of non-text.
At full speed, picture quality is poor, but there are six speed settings that you can adjust at any time, to improve the quality but slow the speed.
Security pages (https) are not loaded via OnSpeed so they are at original speed and quality.
However, I do have a couple of quibbles.
Firstly, sometimes OnSpeed doesn't function properly and I may have to disconnect and re-dial my ISP or even re-boot my PC, but this doesn't happen very often.
Secondly, if a web page is loaded at full speed and it contains a picture that I would like to be of better quality, I haven't found a way of achieving this. If I reset the speed setting to "original" and reload the page, the quality doesn't improve. I've tried deleting the page from my Web Page History, but this doesn't seem to work either.
Anybody know if there is a way around this?
In IE6 you can right click on an image and select "View Original Image" to get the full quality picture. I haven't found a way to do it in Firefox though.
I've been very impressed with Onspeed and bought it for those times I'm away from my normal Broadband connection. I use a Bluetooth link to my Mobile phone and a GPRS connection. Onspeed delivers a remarkably fast service with compression ratios of 6-7 times. This has the dual benefit of giving me 6-7 times as much data transfer for my money on the GPRS data rate I get from my ISP (Orange). This is what I really call win-win :j
On this single call it has compressed 23MB to 2.52, which would save an hour if continuous traffic.