ChiliTech RED for Mac OS X Frequently Asked Questions

ChiliTech RED for Mac OS X Basics

When you click the ChiliTech RED icon in the menu bar, the ChiliTech RED menu appears. From the menu, you can see the current status of ChiliTech RED and your current web acceleration setting. You may modify this setting by selecting an acceleration level between Maximum and Low. You can also disable ChiliTech RED by selecting Off.

The menu includes an option to block banner ads and other in-page ads. It also has a Links command that provides access to the ChiliTech RED home page and to online user information including the Quick Tour and Using ChiliTech RED (this document).
Quick Tour

The Quick Tour is a two-minute web-based tutorial that explains:

The Quick Tour is available under Links from the ChiliTech RED menu. To access this menu, click the ChiliTech RED icon in the menu bar.
Help

The Help menu option opens a local help file. ChiliTech RED Help includes the following information:

Help is available from the ChiliTech RED menu. To access this menu, click the ChiliTech RED icon in the menu bar.
ChiliTech RED Status

The top two lines in the menu show the current status of ChiliTech RED. The status may be one of the following:

Accelerator: Enabled
Accelerating normally

Accelerator: Turned off. Enable by
choosing Web Acceleration below

Accelerator: Self-disabled -- Network
Connectivity Problems Detected

Accelerator: Self-disabled -- Network
High-speed Connection Detected

Accelerator: Login Invalid
Retry Login...

Accelerator: Version Not Supported
Upgrade Accelerator

The ChiliTech RED icon in the menu bar changes to reflect the status. For example, when the status is Normal, the icon appears as a filled gray propeller. When there is acceleration activity, the filled propeller spins. When ChiliTech RED user-disabled, the propeller is hollow with a dark outline. By clicking the icon, you can determine the current status because it displays in the ChiliTech RED menu.

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Enable/Disable ChiliTech RED

When ChiliTech RED is enabled, Accelerator: Enabled appears as the first item in the menu. When ChiliTech RED is disabled, the menu item appears as Accelerator: Disabled.

By default, ChiliTech RED is enabled, meaning that your Internet experience is accelerated. When you disable it by selecting the Off setting, you bypass ChiliTech RED and you access the Internet at regular speed.

Note: Even if ChiliTech RED is disabled, the menu is still active. You can access Links or change preferences.

The second menu item gives you status information about ChiliTech RED. Typically, this item appears as Accelerating normally.

The complete status list includes the following items:

Accelerator: Enabled
Accelerating normally

Accelerator: Turned off. Enable by
choosing Web Acceleration below

Accelerator: Self-disabled -- Network
Connectivity Problems Detected

Accelerator: Self-disabled -- Network
High-speed Connection Detected

Accelerator: Login Invalid
Retry Login...

Accelerator: Version Not Supported
Upgrade Accelerator

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ChiliTech RED for Mac OS X Preferences

The ChiliTech RED Preferences window has two tabs:

• Acceleration
• Setup

Acceleration Tab

ChiliTech RED accelerates downloads of web page images by first pre-compressing the graphics they contain. By default, ChiliTech RED delivers compressed graphic images to your web page at the Very High acceleration level.

Following is a summary of all Acceleration Preferences:

Low acceleration. This setting maintains the original quality of the graphics on the web pages you view. You get good overall acceleration because ChiliTech RED speeds up text, HTML, and some graphics through a technique called lossless compression, but graphics acceleration will be limited to about 1.2X (20% improvement with no loss of quality).

Medium acceleration. At this setting you get better graphics acceleration (2.0X or 100% improvement) with minimal effect on the actual appearance of the image.

High acceleration. This setting has increased acceleration with slightly more image quality degradation. It has usable graphic setting of approximately 3.0X improvement.

Very High acceleration. This setting offers even more graphics compression (~6.0X).

Maximum acceleration. This is the maximum or fastest graphics acceleration setting. At this level, the typical web page with lots of graphics appears significantly faster than without ChiliTech RED. However, there is a trade-off in that most graphics are slightly fuzzy (~9.0X). In addition, some pages have functional graphic elements that can be affected by loss of color.

Note: At an acceleration level of Medium or higher, animated GIFs are disabled.

As you move the slider between the various graphic acceleration level options, you can see the three images changing. These changes reflect - in fact, they actually exaggerate - the effect graphics acceleration has on the images.
Viewing a Page With Different Graphics Acceleration Settings

If you are using a graphics acceleration option above Low Acceleration and you want to view the page at its original quality, change to the higher-quality setting by following these steps:

The images in the refreshed (or reloaded) URL reflect your new settings.

Note: The refresh option is ineffective on recently viewed pages. If you change the Graphic Image Acceleration setting and look at the pages again, the new setting does not affect those pages. For example, if you view Page A at Maximum acceleration, then switch to Medium acceleration, then view Page B, page B will be at Medium acceleration. However, if you then view Page A, only elements of the page that have changed since you last viewed it will appear at Medium acceleration.

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