"Improve Image Quality"

After several months, I finally was able to get internet at my place yesterday. It was a very liberating day.

Once I got it set up, I started to surf around the 'net and I noticed that on just about every site--ATS/BTS included--many of the images and such looked like junk. I know that it is not the websites as I would visit them from other computers. When I would hover my mouse over the image [an example from ATS would be the "logo" for each forum--the Alien/UFO one for example] a little tool tip box would pop up that said, something along the lines of, "To improve image quality, press Shift+R for the image, or Shift+A for the whole page." [That's a translation from German, it may say something different in English, but it's probably the same idea.]

My initial thought was, 'what the junk, who doesn't want their images to look the best they can?'

I can't figure out what is causing this. It occurs across different browsers, too. I tried IE7, Google Chrome, Flock, and Firefox 3. Has this happened to anyone else before? Anyone have a possible solution to this?

Thanks!

It sounds as though your internet provider is using image compression to help speed up page load times.

Here in the states there are several dial-up providers which use it to offer what they call "high-speed dialup". By compressing the images on web pages, and thus decreasing their file size, it gives the impression of "surfing faster", when in fact the text content loads just the same as without the "high-speed dial-up".

There should be a setting some where in the software you installed to set up your internet connection which should allow you to disable the image compression altogether. If not then you might try contacting your internet provider for information on how to turn it off. I certainly hope you're not paying extra for this so-called "service".

reply to post by 12m8keall2c


Thanks for the reply! Image compression does seem to be the issue. There doesn't seem to be a setting in the software to turn this off though. Luckily, I'm not paying for this 'service'. I get to use a Mobile Broadband card for free until my regular DSL gets set up.

But, in case anyone else stumbles upon this with the same problem, the provider [Vodafone] seems to only do this with their Mobile Broadband [which I currently am using]. My assumption would be that in a few weeks, once I'm able to use the landline DSL, all should be a-okay.