In my experiance the best way to improve your speed is to move to a more reliable ISP. Some have wierd proxies that slow things down, others just don't provide a constant 52K connection. Other than a few things you can do with your browser there's no way to do anything to make a 56k connection faster. I tried a handfull of utilites to optomize the modem settings and in the end I found they either slowed my system down with bloatware or botched up the registry settings. If you're somewhere SBC services you can get DSL for $19/month if you sign up on line, which isn't a whole lot more than most people pay for dial-up.