How does it work?
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Polka accelerator consists of a program that you download and install on your computer, as well as special polka accelerator servers. The software and the servers work together to bring Web pages to your screen in a smarter, speedier fashion. Polka accelerator uses the following methods:
- Compression. Polka accelerator speeds up the delivery of text and graphics using compression technology that reduces the size of Web-page content and email messages.
- Caching. Polka accelerator improves your browser's caching ability. It keeps and reuses Web pages and page elements that have previously been sent to your PC.
- Persistent Connection. Polka accelerator optimises the link between your modem and our polka servers via a persistent connection, which saves you precious time.
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What will be accelerated?
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With a few exceptions, most of the content downloaded to your Web browser and sent/received by your email program will be accelerated, as shown below:
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| What will be accelerated |
What will not be accelerated |
| All text - HTML, scripting and written page content |
Streaming media, incl. audio & video files |
| Most graphics & photos - including JPG and GIF images |
Secure pages, such as those used for online banking and credit card forms and pages accessed over VPN |
| Most banner ads - including animated gif images and Macromedia Flash content |
Files downloaded outside your browser using FTP software or any other external application |
| All browser-based emails. |
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| Incoming and outgoing emails and attachments, especially large pictures or Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Most email programs, including Outlook and Outlook Express, are supported. |
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| MP3 files, executables & other files when downloaded from within your Web browser (depending on the quality of your connection). |
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| Will polka accelerator speed up the downloading of files via file-sharing programs? |
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| Polka accelerator is designed to speed up downloading files when they are initiated through the browser. It will not speed up file downloads via other programs. |
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| What are the privacy implications of using polka accelerator? |
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| Our server-logging features are designed in such a way that no single log contains a direct record of the Web sites visited by specific clients. |
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| Personally-identifiable Information on Your Computer: Just as your browser cache stores content from Web pages that you have visited, polka accelerator also stores temporary files in its own cache. It is possible for someone with sufficient expertise to use the information in your browser cache to determine what Web sites you have visited. For this reason, your browser software includes commands that allow you to delete its temporary files. The polka accelerator software also stores temporary files on your computer's hard drive. Those files could also be used to determine what Web pages you have visited, so polka accelerator offers a command (under "Options" on the program menu) that allows you to delete those temporary files at any time. |
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| Client/Server Communication: The polka accelerator client software does not transmit any historical record of your browsing activities to our servers other than non-user-identifiable summary timing and compression information, and diagnostic information. Such information is used solely for overall system performance monitoring and quality assurance. |
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| In terms of your online privacy, therefore, there is no practical difference between using and not using polka accelerator. |
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| Will deleting my browser's temporary Internet files (cache) adversely affect my browsing performance? |
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| Yes. Deleting your browser's temporary files -- often referred to as "cache", "browser's cache", or "cache files" can potentially impact browser performance, since there will initially be no static cached pages. Similarly, deleting polka accelerator temporary files -- which you can do via the Options item on the polka accelerator program menu -- will temporarily decrease the amount of acceleration you receive. If you are using polka accelerator, the effect of deleting your browser's cache will be less pronounced than would otherwise be the case. There should be no reason to delete your cache on a regular basis. |
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| Does polka accelerator work with Virtual Private Networks (VPNS)? |
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| VPNs provide remote users with secure access to corporate Intranets. VPN traffic is usually encrypted. For this reason, polka accelerator does not speed up Web pages accessed over VPNs. However, polka accelerator automatically allows non-accelerated surfing over VPN connections. When polka accelerator is accessing VPN pages, a yellow triangle appears on the polka accelerator icon in the system tray to let you know that polka accelerator is temporarily unavailable: |
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| Why can’t I use polka accelerator with my polka broadband ADSL connection? |
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| The polka accelerator and broadband ADSL networks are separate and not compatible. Should there be any change in this situation, we will announce this on the polka web site. |
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How to use it
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Once you have installed polka accelerator, close Internet Explorer and open it again.
Polka accelerator will start working automatically every time you connect to the Internet. For most people, polka accelerator will work "out of the box", so you don't need to change any settings if you don't want to.
The blue polka accelerator icon will always be present in your Windows system tray (the bottom right-hand corner of your screen).
If you cannot see the blue polka accelerator icon in your system tray (next to the clock at the bottom-right of your screen), do the following:
Click on Start -> Programs -> {Propel accelerator polka Edition} -> Start Propel accelerator polka Edition.
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| Quick Tour |
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| For an overview of the options that polka accelerator offers you, click on the blue polka accelerator icon: |
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Now click on Quick Tour: |
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| This will take you on a tour of the features and options that polka accelerator offers you. |
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| TIP: polka accelerator comes with built-in help. To access it, simply click on the blue polka accelerator icon in your system tray, and click on Help… |
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Troubleshooting Tips
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| TIP: polka accelerator offers extensive, built-in help. To access it, simply click on the blue polka accelerator icon in your system tray, and click on Help… as follows: |
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| Why am I seeing poor-quality graphics after installing polka accelerator? |
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| Polka accelerator speeds up the downloading of Web images by compressing them. This is just one of the techniques that polka accelerator uses to speed things up. By default, graphic images are delivered to your Web page in slightly compressed form that balances speed of delivery with graphics quality. |
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| In some cases you may notice a degraded graphic and want to see the original quality. To do this, you have three options. They are, in order of preference: |
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- One picture, once only -- Right-click on an image in your browser and select "Refresh Picture with Full Quality".
- All pictures always -- Click on the blue polka icon in your system tray (bottom-right of your screen), click on "Options", then on "Graphics and Ads", and move the sliding bar to "Low Acceleration". Click on OK, and go back to the Web page you were viewing. Now hold in the Ctrl key and press F5 to refresh the page.
- Specific page always -- To ensure that a specific Web page is always loaded at full quality (try these steps one at a time until satisfied – no need to complete them all if you see the desired results after completing one step):
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a) Go to the Web page you always want to view at full quality. Right-click on the Web address (URL) in the browser address bar, and select "Copy".
b) From Internet Explorer, click Tools, then click Internet Options. Now click the Connections tab. Select the connection you are using. Click Settings...
c) Click the Advanced... button.
d) Click in the Exceptions box, then right-click and select "Paste".
e) Click OK.
f) Clear your browser cache and polka accelerator Cache, and refresh the page.
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| In Outlook, use the "Save As" command to save the file in HTML format to your desktop, then double-click it to view in your browser. Once in your browser, you can use the "Refresh With Full Quality" right-click commands. |
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| TIPS: |
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- When you first install polka accelerator, you need to close and restart Internet Explorer in order to have the "Refresh Page" and "Refresh Picture" right-click menu options available.
- If you want to save the original quality of an image to your hard drive, you will first need to refresh the picture at its original quality level.
- If you wish to change the graphics quality setting, click on the small blue polka icon located near your system clock and select Options.
- If you uninstalled polka accelerator and you want to remove the degraded images, simply delete your browser cache.
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| I installed polka accelerator but something is wrong! |
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| Firstly, you need to connect to the Internet from a computer via a standard (analogue) modem. It cannot be used with adsl or any other connectivity method. |
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| It will not work if you connect to polka by dialling any dialup number except one of the numbers listed here. If the number you are using does not work with polka accelerator, please contact us using the relevant contact details at the bottom of this page. |
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| Secondly, is polka accelerator installed properly? There should be a blue "propeller" icon in the system tray next to the clock. |
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- If it's not there, click on Start - Programs - Propel accelerator polka Edition - Start Propel accelerator polka Edition.
- If polka accelerator is not in the Windows Program menu, double-click on the polka_accelerator.exe file you downloaded. This will repeat the installation.
- If the file is not there, please download it again.
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| Thirdly, let's check your proxy settings. |
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| If you're using Internet Explorer: |
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- In Internet Explorer, select Tools, then click Internet Options. Click on the Connections tab. Select the connection you are using. Now click on Settings...
- Make sure that the "Use a proxy server for this connection" checkbox is checked. If not, do so. Then click the Advanced button.
- Make sure that the proxy address for HTTP port address is set to "localhost" (no quotes) and the port is set to 8080. Click OK. Now test.
- You can verify that polka accelerator is working when: The blue polka accelerator icon shows moving arrows as you browse Web sites.
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| Fourthly, if nothing has helped, do you have a firewall? Personal-firewall software may prevent polka accelerator from launching or providing acceleration. If your firewall prompts you about a file called "PropelAC.exe", of if it is set to block port 8080, please set your firewall to allow this file and/or port to access the Internet. |
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| What are “proxy conflicts” and what do I do about them? |
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| In polka accelerator's Advanced Settings window, Internet connections with and without proxy setting conflicts are displayed. Two options are available: |
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- Only accelerate connections without proxy conflicts.
- Accelerate all connections.
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| If you choose Accelerate all connections, even connections with potential conflicts will be made compatible with polka accelerator. This means that the polka accelerator proxy settings will replace whatever settings may exist for that connection. |
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| Accelerating connections that have proxy conflicts may or may not work. A good approach is to look at the list of incompatible connections. |
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- If you aren't using any connections identified as having potential conflicts with polka accelerator, choose "Only accelerate connections without proxy conflicts".
- If you want to try accelerating connections that do have proxy conflicts with polka accelerator, choose "Accelerate all connections". If another program is using a proxy for acceleration or other such services, substituting the polka accelerator proxy settings may allow you to accelerate your Internet experience.
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| NB: If your Internet connection depends on another proxy (such as a firewall), accelerating that particular connection may not work. |
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| TIP: You can restore Internet Explorer to the previous proxy setting by selecting "Stop Propel accelerator polka Edition" from the Windows Start menu, as follows: |
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| Start - Programs - Propel accelerator polka Edition - Stop Propel accelerator polka Edition |
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| I uninstalled polka accelerator and now I can’t surf! |
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- Open Internet Explorer.
- Select Tools, then click Internet Options.
- Now click on the Connections tab.
- Select the connection you are using. Click Settings. Make sure that the "Use a proxy server for this connection" checkbox is not checked.
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| For further assistance with polka accelerator, simply call or email us. |
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| email - technic@polka.co.za |
| phone - 082 283 20 40 |