If you’re anything like me, you (or the kids – grrrr) exceed your monthly internet download limit on a regular basis. You then have to spend the rest of the month browsing the web at arm-chewingly slow speeds. Or maybe your connection is just plain slow. There’s a way around it.

The Opera web browser has a feature built in called Opera Turbo. Opera Turbo compresses all of your web pages and images before they come down the line, so browsing over a slow connection becomes a much more tolerable experience.

(If you don’t know what a web browser is, you probably use Internet Explorer – the blue E – because it came with your computer. There are alternatives.)

First, download and install Opera. After you’ve done this, you should have a nice big red ‘O’ icon on your desktop.  Open it and begin browsing as you normally would.

You’ll see a little clock icon in the bottom left corner, like this;

Click it to enable Opera Turbo.  That’s it!

Caveats

Firstly, Opera achieves this compression by routing all of your web traffic through their servers. This might be a privacy issue – they could effectively know where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing.

Secondly, Opera Turbo doesn’t work with every web page. Some sites, especially those that require you to sign in, might experience problems. Also, Opera Turbo only makes web pages faster, not other internet services like Skype, email, nor plug-in content like YouTube videos.

Tags: computing