There's a whole slew of programs that call themselves Web browser accelerators. These utilities ostensibly make browsing faster by reading Web pages into your browser's disk cache before you click the links on a Web page. When your browser pulls up to a home page, these programs dig down one level of links on that site by default and pull the pages, their graphics, and sound files onto your hard disk. (You can set the programs to dig down further or follow links off the site.) Click a link and the page is fetched from your PC's hard disk, not the Web, and it pops up onscreen. Some of these programs will observe your surfing habits and cache pages it knows you're going to visit again in the near future, further speeding your surfing.

Just keep in mind that "accelerate" is a relative term. These programs do make surfing smoother-if you start with a site that has a limited number of links. If you visit a site like My Excite, where there are hundreds of links to news, weather, sports stories, and cool Web sites, these programs can't pre-cache the pages fast enough. In one test I surfed to a massive site I'd never visited before, and these programs took more than five minutes to do the job. Web browser accelerators also suffer from another problem. Because they aren't selective, they'll cache lots of pages you won't ever look at.

But a browser accelerator can speed up surfing if you tell it to ignore graphics and other high-bandwidth elements while online or use it à la WebWhacker to fetch pages for surfing off-line later. My favorite of the trio reviewed here is WebSnake because it has all these features. But you may find that PeakJet and Got It match your surfing style more closely. All three work under Windows 95 or NT with Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer 2.x and up.

To test these utilities, I used them to plan a business trip to Mobile, Ala. I wanted to know about restaurants and tourist attractions there, so I surfed to the Alabama Live site (www.al.com), which has news, travel, weather, and sports information from the three largest newspapers in the state, plus restaurant reviews and event calendars.

Snakin' the Web

WebSnake 1.2 bills itself as an off-line browser, and it works much like WebWhacker, only better. Instead of running with your browser, WebSnake goes online solo, retrieves what you want from a site, stores it to disk, and logs off. Fire up your browser and you can surf the files as if you were online-but far more quickly.

You have five options with WebSnake. The program can copy every file on a site for off-line browsing. It can create a mirror version of a site on your hard disk, including its directory structure, so you can see how the site is set up. The program can download just an outline of the site, not the actual files. It can also copy only the email addresses on a site or retrieve just those files that match a key word search. You can search all files or only file names using wildcards, but you don't get any Boolean operators. However, it worked great when I searched for seafood restaurants in Mobile.

For my test, I used the first option. I went to the Mobile restaurant review page, set the depth for three levels (the current page plus two levels below), and within 10 minutes, WebSnake had gathered a neat set of restaurant reviews for me to peruse.

As it went along, it kept me informed of its progress. When everything had been downloaded, WebSnake logged off. I simply clicked the download file, my browser opened it, and I leafed through the pages as if I were on the Net. WebSnake has other cool features. It can do its work in the background and snake multiple sites at once. It lets you exclude certain files from downloading by link (such as www.microsoft.com) or key word ("squash").

PeakJet: Online Cache

PeakSoft's PeakJet (formerly known as Net.Jet) is more like a true, online cache program. It surfs ahead of you while you're online, caching pages you might visit. Not only that, it tries to learn your surfing habits and regularly downloads updates of oft-visited pages.

Since PeakJet is a Java applet, it works like an add-on to your browser. (First you launch PeakJet, then it launches your browser.) PeakJet's floating toolbar gives you status and access to various settings. Note: Your browser will use PeakJet like a proxy server, so it's key that you close PeakJet and let it shut down your browser. If you don't, certain settings won't be properly updated.

When I used PeakJet with Internet Explorer, pages loaded quickly. Pages I had visited more than once were updated every time I loaded PeakJet. Like most browser accelerators, PeakJet won't flag you when your disk is overflowing with files, so you must remember to clear the cache every so often.

Got It: A Little of This AND a little of That

Got It combines the online and off-line philosophies. You launch this add-on either before or after you launch the browser, and a control panel appears. Click a button on the panel and you update the cached pages, fetch the latest version of a site, add a new site to your update list, and connect or disconnect from the Internet. Got It also creates a special Web page in your cache where you set Search/Retrieve and other program options.

If you use Got It while online, it will cache pages linked to the page you are reading. Surf on to another site, and it will shift its attention to the new locale. Got It is the fastest of the three at caching pages; it captured the entire Alabama Live site in just nine minutes, faster than PeakJet or WebSnake.

Other features are worth noting. The program will tell you when a site it has cached has changed, so you can read it at your leisure. The Auto Upgrade feature lets you get the latest updated page with a click. If you don't look at a page in the cache after a set time, Got It will delete it, saving disk space. Got It keeps a log of all activity so you can keep track of where it's been and what it's done. And Got It's setup Web page even has a mini Yahoo-like guide to the Web, with links to search engines and cool sites in the arts, business, computing, entertainment, hobbies, lifestyle, news, reference, science, shopping, sports, and travel.

More of the Same

I've seen several other programs like WebSnake, PeakJet, and Got It. For example, the $29.95 NetAccelerator from IMSI (www.imsisoft.com) is another cache-style program, and DocuMagix's $29.95 HotPage (www.documagix.com) is a browser plug-in that lets you save Web pages with a click or retrieve them at scheduled times. HotPage also lets you annotate captured Web pages easily, print them with a click, and organize them in a file cabinet. Some of these tools lash a toolbar or dashboard to your browser; others work completely in the background.

Whichever Web browser accelerator you choose to buy, look for the following features. Make sure it has the ability to learn your surfing habits, so it doesn't pack your hard disk with Web pages you'll never read.

Make sure it lets you control how many files and which kinds of files it will retrieve, as well as how many levels deep it will burrow into a Web site.

Make sure it has an interface that's obvious, useful, and not intrusive.

On all three counts, WebSnake takes the gold cup. And at $29.95, it's a deal.

© 1997 Elizabeth Crowe. All rights reserved.

Contributing editor Elizabeth Crowe specializes in online services, online research, and information brokering. She's the author of "The Electronic Traveler"; "Information for Sale" (with John Everett); and "Genealogy Online, Second Edition." You can reach her via libbi_powell_crowe@bigfoot.com or care of Computer Currents.

Where to Buy

WebSnake 1.23
Anawave Software Inc.
800/711-6030
www.anawave.com
List price: $29.95, free trial available from Web site

Got It 1.1.1
Go Ahead Software
800/631-0806
www.goahead.com/gotit
List price: $19.95, free trial available from Web site

PeakJet 1.55
PeakSoft Corporation
888/999-7325
www.peak-media.com
List price: $29.95, free trial available from Web site