According to the FCC, 6% of American internet users still used dial-up connections in 2010. Extrapolating this statistic to a worldwide audience effectively means that there are millions of people out there who have no access to high speed broadband connections.
This is shocking to most people who have gotten very used to the very high speeds of cheap broadband access, but the reality of the matter is that this is simply not an option for everyone out there. Some are limited by geographical or financial constraints and have to make do with very slow internet connections.
If you are one of those people, please don’t despair. File sharing is for everyone, including for you. Take the following advice to heart and make the most out of your limited connection with Ares Galaxy.
Optimizing Ares Galaxy For A Low Speed Connection
Open the Ares Control Panel and click on the Transfer tab. There are a few adjustments you should make here in order to make the best out of an admittedly subpar situation.
Limit Uploads: File sharing does revolve around sharing and limiting uploads may be understood as anti-social behavior in this respect. But let’s face it: a dial-up connection is not going to do much uploading anyway so don’t feel bad about not giving back to the community. Limit everything under ‘Transfer’ related to uploads to one to avoid wasting the little bandwidth you have.
Limit Downloads: Counter-intuitive? No. If your connection is very slow, you would do well to limit your downloads as well as your uploads. Limiting the total amount of downloads at once to 1 will ensure that all of your bandwidth goes to download a single file at a time, instead of it being spread over several files. Don’t limit it to zero, as this actually means that there will be no limit at all!
Limit Bandwidth: Obviously, you’ll want to limit your upload bandwidth to a low figure, like 1 kilobyte per second. You may also want to limit your download bandwidth. If you don’t do this, all of your available bandwidth may go to Ares Galaxy, which means that you won’t even be able to check your e-mails or read an article online while having the program open.
The resulting settings, optimized for low bandwidth connections, can be seen in the following screenshot:
Changing Your Behavior
When forced to make do with a very slow connection, you may have to change your behavior a little bit. Here are some more tips to optimize your file sharing activities on Ares Galaxy:
- Download files which have multiple sources/users sharing that file to make sure that your download is not additionally constrained by someone’s limited upload speed
- Download well-compressed files such as mp3s and avoid large files which would take ages to download
- Don’t feel forced to finish a download in one setting. You can download part of a file today and come back for the rest tomorrow without a problem