Blocked site -

[James Wilkinson]

Tim wrote:
> Proxying can only speed things up, for you, if you access something
> that someone else has already accessed before you.  *And* if that
> data is cacheable.

I replied:
> In general, true.
> 
> It doesn’t sound as though this service is conventional proxying,
> though. It sounds like they’re dynamically rewriting web pages to
> reduce the number of TCP/IP round trips. Since a round trip via a
> satellite takes about half a second, there’s a lot of scope for
> speeding things up.
 
Tim wrote:
> Even pre-fetching is still dependent on the data being cacheable.

It’s not really pre-fetching, either: it’s just a translation layer. As
you note, though:

> Some
> sites just don't work well with any sort of proxying, and some are
> deliberately hostile to it.

it’s not something the sites expect.

I should note, though, that Opera Mini does something rather similar
(this time, to reduce bandwidth requirements and CPU requirements on
mobile phones), so it’s not that unusual.

James.

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