Tip: Optimize your Internet connection, for free

The web is packed with tools which claim they're the best choice to accelerate your Internet connection. Most of them promise too much and deliver nothing at all, though, so installing another probably isn't high on your list of priorities.

But wait. Auslogics Internet Optimizer, a free version of a module in the company's BoostSpeed 5 suite, is different -- and it could be worth a closer look.

You can ask the program to automatically optimize your connection, for instance: just click "Auto Optimization", then the Analyze button. Unlike most of the competition, it doesn't just give you some magic "Speedup" button, leaving you with no idea of what the program going to do. Instead you'll see every single recommended change, allowing you to decide exactly which setting should be tweaked, and which you'd like to keep.

And Internet Optimizer doesn't simply check the basics, like MTU and RWIN. It understands more than 30 TCP/IP settings, a variety of Winsock options, some useful DNS Cache settings, and a variety of options for IE, Firefox and Opera -- some 88 tweaks in total.

If you'd prefer to avoid the program's automatic optimization, you might prefer to take the more hands-on manual approach.  This lets you browse the tweaks on offer in an easy-to-navigate tree form, so if, say, you want to check and adjust your PC's Auto Heuristics settings, there's no need to open the command line, or browse the Registry.  Just launch Internet Optimizer, go to TCP/IP > Auto Heuristics, and choose whatever option you need.

Does it work? There are so many variables here that it's hard to come up with a single answer.  We ran a quick Auto Optimization on a test PC which we thought was already running at its peak performance, though, and found its download speeds improved by around 6 percent, according to SpeedTest.net. Nothing revolutionary, but still worth having.

Of course connection tweaking is a complex business, and it's entirely possible that you'll see different results, including perhaps worse performance than you have right now.  Fortunately Auslogics have considered that possibility, and whenever you use the program to change anything, it'll back up your original settings first.  If there's a problem, click File > Rescue Centre, choose your last backup, and you can reverse your last tweaks in a click.

Auslogics Internet Optimizer probably won't make a huge difference to your internet connection speed, then. But it's free, easy to use, comprehensive, worked for us, and comes with a handy safety net in case something goes wrong.  So if you think your current connection performance has room for improvement, then give it a try -- it just might be able to help.