These instructions should help you understand how to use LinkFox. This program does not "run automatically in the background" like other web accelerators. That is inefficient and wasteful and will not save you much time in many cases, while decimating the bandwidth of your ISP, the remote web server and your own modem.

LinkFox allows you to choose which links you wish to preload to your cache, insuring that the pages you want to visit next will be there and waiting for you when you want to go there. The program is very intuitive and easy to use. You should be able to master the method of dropping links into LinkFox in just a few minutes. These instructions will help you to understand some of the basic techniques for using LinkFox.

The following information is an excerpt from the LinkFox HelpFile:

NOTE: If you are not confident in using your Right-click menu, you may wish to stay with the Full Window and drag your links directly into that window to preload the text and images from that linked page into your Web Browser's cache. You would then minimize the Full Window after double-clicking on a link so that you can view the page in your browser's window. In this case you can ignore any comments that follow with regard to the "Drop Basket" and "Links List" window.

For more advanced users, or once you have gotten used to LinkFox's operation, you may wish to try the following configuration:

• Right-click on the default window and choose Show link list only from the pop-up menu.
• Resize the Link List window larger with your mouse to about half screen and half screen height.
• Double-click on the colored title bar of the Link List window and it will turn into the little round Drop Basket button.
• Position the button to an appropriate spot on your web browser's toolbar.
• Right-click on the Drop Basket button and be sure Always on top is checked.
• From the Right-click menu under Options leave the default items checked including Start with browser and Terminate with browser which will run LinkFox whenever you open your browser.

Using LinkFox to browse the Web

There are various ways to use LinkFox to do your web browsing more efficiently. Working from the recommended initial configuration, try this recommended starting procedure. As you become more familiar with LinkFox, you can adjust the way you work to suit your own preferences.

1. The idea is to use LinkFox to load pages into your browser's cache ahead of time, so that when you go to view the new page it will load instantly, rather than having to wait for all the text and images to load. To do this, simply drag any hyperlink -- text or image -- into the LinkFox Window or Drop Basket and drop it there. To drag the link you must do the following:

   a. Make sure there's no text selected in your browser. To cancel text selection, simply click anywhere in the clear space of the web page.

   b. Position your mouse over the desired hyperlink, press the left mouse button, and move your mouse pointer to LinkFox window without releasing your mouse button.

   c. When you have your mouse positioned inside LinkFox window, release your mouse button. LinkFox should start loading the selected page into your browser's cache.

2. If you are using the Drop Basket configuration of LinkFox, dragging a link into that Drop Basket will turn the chain image yellow. Once the link has finished loading, the chain will turn green. Note that a link which cannot be loaded will turn the chain red. The chain will remain red until that link (with a red X beside it) is deleted from the LinkFox window.

3. As a link loads as viewed in either the Full Window or the Link List, it will show the URL at first with a small diskette image next to it. The number 1 will appear next to the diskette and as the link begins to load, that number should start counting down from the some higher number, which represents the total number of items (images, sound clips, etc.) on that page. Once it finishes loading, the URL should change to the page title, if there is one, and a green check mark will replace the small black diskette image.

4. You may drag as many links into the Drop Basket or window as you wish and those links will begin to load simultaneously or as each one is found. If a link can not be loaded, a red X will appear next to it. Once a link has finished loading and the green check mark appears, you can double click on it to load it into the main browser window. You can also select the link and hit the Enter key which does the same thing as a double click.

5. You can also right click on the link in the LinkFox window and choose the option Open in new window. Once the green check mark appears it should load INSTANTLY if your browser's cache options are set correctly. Note that most pages that are generated on the fly by the web server can not be cached properly, because the browser is presented with new information each time it requests that page. These pages may take a few more moments to load. These include .cgi and .shtml pages and other dynamically generated web pages. The majority of pages you are likely to visit will not behave like this, however, and should load instantly. Note that most advertising banners are dynamically generated and will not be preloaded to cache.

6. You can also choose Add link (CTRL + L) from the pop-up menu and type or paste a URL into the box and hit enter or the OK button. That also gives you an option into which browser you would like to load the link. If only one browser is open, LinkFox will recognize that and only permit you to load files to that browser's cache.

7. Once you have visited a link, that link will change colors the way a visited link does on a web page, making it a simple matter to tell which links you have already visited.

8. If you wish to retain links for a future session, or your browser swallows some bitter Java and crashes on you, your links will still be there the next time you reopen LinkFox. These will remain there for several days, then if not used, LinkFox will prompt you if you would like to remove them. You can manually delete links anytime by selecting them and hitting the DELETE key on your keyboard. You can also select the option to never delete links automatically in LinkFox options.

9. See the LinkFox menus section for more advanced tricks and techniques for using LinkFox

Why should you use LinkFox?

We think you will really like the functionality of LinkFox and how quickly your browser pages will load once you have preloaded the link into your browser cache. We also hope you will appreciate the selectivity and control LinkFox gives you over preloading your links. This method will not tie up your modem unnecessarily, and exhibits good "Netiquette" by not wasting resources from either your ISP or the remote site's web server to load useless information into your computer. It is like going fishing and catching only what you wish to eat, rather than indiscriminately catching every fish you possibly can and then leaving them to die.

There are limited resources on this Earth and limited resources on the Internet, and we hope you will agree that LinkFox can dramatically speed up your web browsing without squandering those resources. We have chosen the name and the image of the Fox, a species already threatened in many areas, to remind you of the delicate balance of nature and need to conserve our global resources.

How to achieve maximum performance on the Web with LinkFox:

LinkFox uses your Web browser's cache facility to store the downloaded data prior to actually visiting the page. Therefore, the configuration of your browser's cache can dramatically affect LinkFox performance. We make the following recommendations:

1. Set your browser's disk cache size to at least 8192 kilobytes

2. Choose the appropriate option in your browser, as indicated below, for comparing documents in cache with documents on the Web. For Netscape you will want to select the option Never, and with Internet Explorer, you should select Once per session. Note that selecting Never instead of Once per session will ensure that Netscape will load the cached files without checking them at all, or almost instantly. Otherwise, Netscape must verify the page before loading it and this can take a few moments. Selecting Never will also mean, however, that if you revisit a site frequently that changes the material often, such as a news-oriented or magazine-style site, you should use Netscape's Reload button to make sure you are getting the most recent version of the web page. Internet Explorer, on the other hand, handles the caching function more efficiently and will load pages preloaded by LinkFox almost instantaneously with the setting Once per session.

To modify your Internet Explorer browser's cache settings for maximum performance, select View from the pull-down menus, then click on Internet Options. Select General tab, and click on Settings button in the Temporary Internet files section. Change setting to Check for newer versions of stored pages: every time you start Internet Explorer. Also set the maximum size of temporary files folder to at least 8 MB. When prompted to select how to check for newer versions of stored pages, you should choose Auto.