What is the PowerSurf Accelerator?
Online Gateway PowerSurf is a subscription-based service that increases the speed of downloading Web pages 2x to 5x. The service is designed for people who currently access the Internet at speeds less than 200 Kbps.

Online Gateway PowerSurf costs justs $19.95 a month.

What types of Web content does this service accelerate?
It accelerates Web page text (including plain text, HTML, markup and javascript) and the most common forms of graphics: Gif, animated Gif, and JPEG images and Flash. It does not accelerate other forms of Internet content, including: streaming media, such as video and audio streams; secure pages, such as those used for online banking and credit card forms; file downloads, including MP3 files and executable programs.

Are ad blockers, popup stoppers, personal firewalls and other utilities compatible with the PowerSurf Accelerator?
The PowerSurf Accelerator is compatible with most ad blockers, popup stoppers, personal firewalls, and other utilities. In some cases, minor configuration either of the PowerSurf accelerator or other products is needed. In other cases, it is not compatible.

How Does it Work?
Online Gateway PowerSurf speeds up the delivery of Web pages using the latest in compression, caching and persistant connections technology.

I travel. Does the PowerSurf Accelerator work anywhere I use my PC?
Yes. If you are accessing the Internet through a dial-up connection in the U.S. and Canada and your system conforms to the PowerSurf Accelerator system requirements you should be able to get an accelerated Internet experience, if you are dialing numbers from the same ISP.

How long will it take to download PowerSurf Accelerator?
Depending on the speed of your modem and the processing speed of your computer, downloading will take between 5-10 minutes. For example, a modem operating at 48kbps (kilobits per second) will download PowerSurf Accelerator in about 5 minutes using a recent-vintage computer. Running the install on your computer takes a minute or less. The optional quick tour takes approximately 2-3 minutes.

How do you quantify the up to 5x faster than dial-up claim
Web page performance is measured by the amount of time it takes to download an entire Web page into your browser. So, when comparing the performance improvement delivered by the PowerSurf Accelerator with an unaccelerated Internet connection, we configure two identical computers. Both are connected to the Internet at the same dial-up connection speed and both have the same PC and Internet browser configuration.

Using an automated browsing measurement tool (i.e. a surfing "bot"), both computers visit the same Web pages multiple times. In order to eliminate variations in download speed caused by various network factors, we take the average times for downloading the same page with and without the PowerSurf Accelerator and compare the two averages in order to determine the improvement factor for a specific Web page (example: www.amazon.com). 5X represents the high-end of the frequently measured averaged results.

If you are particularly interested in the topic of timing Web pages, here's a link to a site that provides a stopwatch for timing page loads and many other interesting Internet timing tools: http://www.numion.com/Stopwatch/index.html

How does this solution compare to DSL or cable modem?
The PowerSurf Accelerator is an affordable software-only solution designed to significantly enhance Web access over low-speed (less than 200 kbps/second) connections. By contrast, DSL and cable modems provide high-speed Internet connectivity using hardware solutions that work with special telephone or cable lines.

The price for DSL or cable modem is significantly higher than the PowerSurf Accelerator. In addition to the higher price, many areas simply do not have DSL or cable Internet service available.

What are the system requirements for the PowerSurf Accelerator?

System Requirements

Below, please find the suggested and minimum system requirements beyond the basics of an analog modem, a telephone line, and an active Internet connection.

The PowerSurf Accelerator cannot be installed if minimum requirements are not met.

• Internet Explorer 5.0 or later
• AOL 6.0 or later
• Netscape 4.7 or later
• For Netscape 6.0 and above
• MSN Explorer
• Intel-based Pentium PC or the equivalent

Look for "X86-based PC" or the equivalent in the System Summary section.

Operating system:
Windows 98, NT 4.0, 2000, ME, XP Home Edition, XP Professional

Disk space:
At least 25 MB of disk space. (135 MB recommended for optimal performance)

System memory (RAM):
At least 32 MB (64 MB recommended for optimal performance)

Internet connection line speed in Kbps (kilobits/second)
Minimum: 14.4 Kbps
Maximum: 200 Kbps

What are the privacy implications of using the PowerSurf Accelerator, powered by Propel?

This FAQ describes the technical privacy risk implications of using PowerSurf Accelerator, and the special steps that Propel Software Corporation takes to minimize those risks. (Please note: Propel's official Privacy Policy is the definitive representation made by Propel regarding our handling of personally-identifiable information about customers. The information presented in this document is for general informational purposes only.)

Personally-identifiable Information on Propel Servers
If you have a high level understanding of how PowerSurf Accelerator works you may be concerned that the PowerSurf Accelerator could be used to track your browsing activities in a way that could violate your privacy. Online Gateway and Propel recognizes that your privacy is very important, and therefore we have implemented the PowerSurf Acceleration Service powered by Propel so that personally-identifiable information cannot be easily tracked or easily derived from data within our server infrastructure. When your PowerSurf Accelerator client software connects to our infrastructure, it identifies itself using a unique client ID. Our infrastructure has a database of client IDs that are authorized to receive acceleration, but that database does not contain any personally-identifiable information associated with the IDs, such as your name, address, or email address. Further, we have designed all of our server logging features in such a way that no single log contains a direct record of the Web sites visited by specific clients. Personally-identifiable information regarding browsing activities is subject to the Privacy Policy and can be derived from information logged by Propel only by applying special post-processing.

Personally-identifiable Information on Your Computer
The PowerSurf Accelerator client software that resides on your personal computer introduces the same sort of privacy risk as your browser software does. Your browser stores temporary files on your computer's hard drive. These files are sometimes collectively called your "browser 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 PowerSurf Accelerator client software also stores temporary files on your computer's hard drive in the "Propel cache". Those files could also be used to determine what Web pages you have visited, so PowerSurf Accelerator includes a command (on the Propel Accelerator menu's Options dialog) so that you can delete those temporary files at any time.

Propel Client/Server Communication
The PowerSurf 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.