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Spyware Warrior
Help with Spyware, Hijacking & Other Internet Nuisances
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lhs75
Junior Member
Joined: 30 Jan 2008
Last Visit: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 16
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 Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 9:58 am Post subject: web accelerators for dial-up users |
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| Does anyone know of a good web accelerator for those of us that still have dial-up service? |
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mikey
Malware Expert
Joined: 12 Feb 2004
Last Visit: 19 Jun 2013
Posts: 1067
Location: CenTex
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 4:56 pm Post subject: Re: web accelerators for dial-up users |
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| lhs75 wrote: |
| Does anyone know of a good web accelerator for those of us that still have dial-up service? |
There is no such thing as 'internet accelerators' that speed up internet connections.
Simply put, web accelerators are just a cache. And when you cache pages, you likely miss new content and/or sacrifice the quality of the pages you want to see. As a host and web dev myself, I really hate the way some folks are forced by ISPs to see the web in a bogus way. ISPs who employ bandwidth saving 'accelerators' to con their users into thinking the web really looks that way are just scum peddling con artists by my thinking.
Just a few of my old bookmarks;
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Internet Accelerators do not speed up your internet connection. They simply use it in a different way.
There are several ways that Internet Accelerators may create the illusion of faster Web browsing. First, they may edit your Hosts file to pre-record the IP address of sites that you visit—saving you, perhaps, a second or two of time, but at the risk of breaking your ability to access a Web site if its IP address happens to change—something that can happen at any time. When a user complains about the classic "page cannot be displayed error," one of the first things I ask them to do is rename their HOSTS file to HOSTS.OLD to rule out this very common problem.
Second, Internet Accelerators sometimes use something called 'read-ahead caching'. Basically, this is where the Accelerator scans the page you are currently reading, and then downloads all linked pages in the background just in case you want to read them. Depending on the Accelerator's settings, a heavy demand can be placed on your hard drive free space, and on your Internet connection—not a good thing if you pay per byte, or have a broadband account that is slowed down once you hit a certain download/upload limit. Also, this downloading places an unnecessary load on the server hosting the site. Granted, this is not a problem if only a few people are using Accelerators—but imagine what would happen if the majority of visitors to a site were all using Accelerators. A server could, theoretically, be brought to its knees by the unnecessary demand.
Internet Accelerators may also use something called 'smart caching,' in which the Accelerator takes over Internet Explorer's cache and only downloads content from the Web if it doesn't already exist on your hard drive. Again, your Internet connection is not faster—all that is happening is the content on your hard drive is being used more efficiently. This type of Accelerator only works if you visit a page on a regular basis and you do not delete downloaded content to free up hard drive space.
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Ref; http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/community/columns/pulling.mspx
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| Okay, I've had it. I'm tired of telling people that what they're seeing on their screen isn't really what my site looks like. I'm tired of explaining to site users that I did not populate my site with sucky graphics. In point of fact, I'm sick and tired of the entire concept of "Accelerated Dialup" that ISPs have been selling for years. It's a myth, an illusion people; it doesn't exist. Now, I realize, of course, that my audience here is primarily web developers and that this isn't anything they don't already know, but I just can't stand it anymore. I'm sure you understand my need for a rant here. |
Ref; http://www.ptvguy.com/the-illusion-of-accelerated-dialup/
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It's one matter when the search engine caches a page you can't get anymore; that's a copyright violation but an all-in-all benign one in the sense that it's only giving you content you could not otherwise see (no different from, say, the web archive).
But it's quite another matter for Google to get in the way of serving current content. This means that the page is served from Google rather than from a publisher's server, which means that the publisher cannot count the traffic and serve targeted and dynamic advertising.
It also means that Google is copying content on its servers and serving it from there and thus is violating copyright.
And it means that Google is in a position to snoop on data on consumers' usage of sites that Google does not own: That is, Google will know what the consumers on my site are doing better than I will for these "accelerated" pages.
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Ref; http://www.howtoweb.com/cgi-bin/insider.pl?zone=359051
and
Ref; http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2005_05_05.html#009612
If you want to get the wrong content from the sites you visit or want third parties to have your surfing habits or you want to waste drive space, perhaps one of the so called 'accelerators' is just what you need.
JMO |
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MysteryFCM
Malware Expert
Joined: 28 Aug 2004
Last Visit: 31 May 2013
Posts: 842
Location: Tyne & Wear, UK
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| Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 1:52 am Post subject: Re: web accelerators for dial-up users |
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| mikey wrote: |
| ISPs who employ bandwidth saving 'accelerators' to con their users into thinking the web really looks that way are just scum peddling con artists by my thinking. |
Def not just your thinking 
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Steven Burn
I.T. Mate / hpHosts
it-mate.co.uk / hosts-file.net |
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suzi
Site Admin
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Last Visit: 19 Jun 2013
Posts: 10277
Location: sunny California
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| Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:01 am Post subject: Re: web accelerators for dial-up users |
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| MysteryFCM wrote: |
| mikey wrote: |
| ISPs who employ bandwidth saving 'accelerators' to con their users into thinking the web really looks that way are just scum peddling con artists by my thinking. |
Def not just your thinking |
Agreed.
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Former Microsoft MVP 2005-2009, Consumer Security
Please do not PM or Email me for personal support. Post in the Forums instead and we will all learn.  |
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olliver
Expert Developer
Joined: 27 Jan 2006
Last Visit: 02 Dec 2010
Posts: 1157
Location: yes
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| Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 5:15 pm Post subject: Re: web accelerators for dial-up users |
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| mikey wrote: |
Simply put, web accelerators are just a cache. And when you cache pages, you likely miss new content and/or sacrifice the quality of the pages you want to see.
| Quote: |
Internet Accelerators do not speed up your internet connection. They simply use it in a different way.
[...]
Second, Internet Accelerators sometimes use something called 'read-ahead caching'. Basically, this is where the Accelerator scans the page you are currently reading, and then downloads all linked pages in the background just in case you want to read them.
[...]
Also, this downloading places an unnecessary load on the server hosting the site. Granted, this is not a problem if only a few people are using Accelerators—but imagine what would happen if the majority of visitors to a site were all using Accelerators. A server could, theoretically, be brought to its knees by the unnecessary demand. |
Ref; http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/community/columns/pulling.mspx
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Mikey, you bring up a very good point here:
To a server owner, a visitor with some "accelerater" is virtually indistinguishable from some idiot scraper or email harvester, because in the server logs they exhibit the same abusive behaviour. This practically means that some webmasters will start denying access to the net segment the visitor's ip addresses are taken from, or even firewall it to prevent this abusive fetching from happening again.
Olliver
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Petcord netlabel :: Synflict post-digital arts :: Leftob audio cast
Each click on any of the links above will save the life of a cute kitty somewhere in the universe. |
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