Slipstream FAQ


This is the Slipstream FAQ.
This section gives the most frequently asked questions about this client. Anything from an Overview to Product Details. If you need something more in depth, please browse the Troubleshooting or if you need assistance with installation and setup, please look at the Product Guide.

For additional information you may also see:

Trouble Shooting Guide
This section gives more in-depth view into error messages that may happen when installing or operating the accelerator client. Frequent questions are located in the FAQ and actually step-by-step installation is located in the product guide.

Product Guide
This section will assist you in step-by-step installation and operation of your Accelerator client which includes screenshots. If you are looking for quick answers, please look at our FAQ or Troubleshooting sections (above).


1. Overview of slipstream Web Accelerator

2.  Download and Installation Help

3.  Using slipstream Web Accelerator

4.  Product Details

5.  Additional Assistance


Section 1 - Overview of slipstream Web Accelerator

How does slipstream claim to be 5X faster?

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 slipstream 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 slipstream 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
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How does slipstream's solution compare to DSL or cable modem?

slipstream 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 slipstream Accelerator. In addition to the higher price, many areas simply do not have DSL or cable Internet service available.
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What are the privacy implications of using slipstream Accelerator?

Personally-identifiable Information on Acceleration Servers
If you have a high level understanding of how Acceleration works you may be concerned that the Accelerator could be used to track your browsing activities in a way that could violate your privacy. We recognize that your privacy is very important, and therefore we have implemented the Acceleration Service so that personally-identifiable information cannot be easily tracked or easily derived from data within our server infrastructure. When your 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 only by applying special post-processing.

Accelerator Client/Server Communication
The 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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Section 2 - Download and Installation Help

Why can't I open the slipstream Accelerator installation file after I download it?

It is possible that the file extension ".exe" was somehow lost from the slipstream Accelerator installation file. You can easily check and, if necessary, remedy this situation. Here's how:

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How long will it take to download slipstream 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 slipstream Accelerator in about 5 minutes using a recent-vintage computer. Running the install on your computer takes a minute or less. 
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Section 3 - Using slipstream Web Accelerator

Is slipstream Accelerator installed, active, and enabled on your computer?
If slipstream Accelerator is installed and active on your computer a small accelerator icon will appear in the Windows taskbar area (near the system clock). If the Accelerator is active while you are surfing the Internet, the accelerator icon will constantly change images. Try accessing a Web site and you should see the icon flashing as web pages load. If you are able to surf the Internet but do not see the icon changing, there are several possibilities:

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How do I change the image quality setting for all images?

Right-click on the slipstream Web Accelerator taskbar icon and select "Settings".  Select the "Image Quality" tab.  Adjust the slider bar to the desired image quality settings.  Press OK to save the changes.
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How do I start slipstream Web Accelerator?

slipstream Web Accelerator is launched automatically every time Windows starts.  You do not have to launch it manually.

A slipstream Web Accelerator icon appears in the Windows system tray to show that it is operating in the background.

If the program was terminated, you can start it up by going to your "Start Menu" "Program Files" "slipstream" and selecting the program from there.
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How do I turn off the Pop-up Bocker?

Click on the accelerator icon in the taskbar, click on Pop-Up and disable it.  If you are going to websites that you need the windows to pop-up, you could add them to the white list so you won't need to disable the pop-up blocker every time you go there.
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How do I uninstall slipstream Accelerator?

Open the "Start Menu".  Open "Settings".  Open "Control Panels".  Finally open "Add/Remove Programs".  Looks for the slipstream client and remove it from there.

IMPORTANT: If you are using a browser other than Internet Explorer or Netscape with slipstream, you will need to manually reconfigure the proxy settings for the respective browser after uninstalling or stopping slipstream Accelerator in order to continue using the Internet. See below for further details.

Restoring a Browser's Proxy Address and Port Number
If you are using a browser besides Internet Explorer or Netscape when you stop or uninstall slipstream Accelerator you will need to reset proxy settings to their original values (or no values). Until you do this, you will likely not be able to access the Internet.  Consult your browser's documentation for information on how this could be done.
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How do I see the original graphic quality of specific image or Web page?

If you are using Internet Explorer, simply move your mouse over an image on a Web page and click the right mouse button. You'll see that two new options are available:

Refresh Page with Full Quality.
Refresh Picture with Full Quality. When your mouse is over a graphic.

If you select one of these options, slipstream Accelerator will replace the compressed graphic image with an original quality version. When the  icon stops changing, the new image is in place.
Note: When you first install slipstream Accelerator, it is necessary to close and then restart IE in order to have the Refresh Page and Refresh Picture right-click menu options available. 

These menu options are not available in Netscape, Opera or Mozilla. Please follow these steps.
1. Click on the Accelerator icon located near your system clock. Go to Options and adjust the Graphics Acceleration Level completely to the right (original quality) and click OK.

2. Hold down the Ctrl key and select R OR Select Reload from the View menu. The compressed graphic image will be replaced with an original quality version.

3. Repeat step one and adjust the Graphics Acceleration Level back to its setting.
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Section 4 - Product Details

How do I use other browsers with my Web Accelerator?

Netscape Navigator is automatically configured to use the slipstream Accelerator.  Use Netscape as you normally would.

For other browsers such as Opera and Mozilla, slipstream Web Accelerator works with any web browser that allows you to specify an HTTP proxy.  You must set the HTTP proxy host to be "127.0.0.1" and the port number to be the local listening port of the slipstream Client (5400 by default).  Consult your browser's documentation for information on how this can be done.

What types of Web content does slipstream accelerate?

slipstream Web Accelerator significantly speeds up web page access.  To achieve this speed up, proprietary lossless compression is applied to text, html, xml, javascript and style sheets  Proprietary image compression is applied to gif images, jpeg images and Flash content. 

slipstream also accelerates email traffic (POP3 and SMTP) using lossless compression.

slipstream does NOT speed up file downloads (over FTP or file sharing programs), streaming audio/video and HTTPS (secure web sites).
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Are ad blockers, popup stoppers, personal firewalls and other utilities compatible with slipstream Accelerator?

slipstream is compatible with most ad blockers, popup stoppers, personal firewalls, and other utilities. In some cases, minor configuration either of slipstream or other products is needed. In other cases, slipstream is not compatible.

If you are receiving error messages from a firewall please ensure the following ports are allowed access:
5400 (127.0.0.1)
7000 (216.126.145.190)
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Does slipstream Web Accelerator speed up email access?

Yes, slipstream automatically accelerates your email traffic (POP3 and SMTP) for all popular email clients such as Eudora, Outlook, Outlook Express and Netscape Mail.  Other email clients should work transparently as well.
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What are the system requirements for slipstream 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.

slipstream Accelerator can be installed on any of the following operating systems:

slipstream Web Accelerator requires at least Internet Explorer 4.0 and Netscape 4.0 or any later version of either browser.

Note that the slipstream Email Acceleration component requires Windows 98 and above, and that the slipstream Pop-up Blocker component requires Internet Explorer 5.0 and above.

Newer versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer are available free of charge through Microsoft.

For Windows 95 users:  Currently, Microsoft does not permit Windows 95 users to install Internet Explorer 6 or greater, however, Internet Explorer 5.5 is available.

The recommended system requirements for slipstream Web Accelerator are a Pentium 200MHz with 64MB of RAM and at least 5MB of hard-disk space.

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

Regardless, slipstream Web Accelerator will work within your current system configuration to provide you with the best content acceleration.
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I travel. Does slipstream 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 slipstream Accelerator system requirements you should be able to get an accelerated Internet experience, if you are dialing numbers from the same ISP.
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Section 5 - Additional Assistance

Contact Us

The most effective way to obtain technical or customer support is to first review the 3 guides we have provided (FAQ, Troubleshooting, and Product Guide), which contains numerous suggestions as well as instructions on sending vitally important slipstream Accelerator diagnostic information.

If the guides do not answer your questions, the next effective thing to do is to e-mail our office at at service@jellico.com. or call us at 784-2000 (1-888-844-7774)
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