HTTP (thing)

There is much software available that claims they can make your HTTP access faster. Unfortunatly, these products are mostly for use with the Windows Operating System. That's why I came up with this to make life worth living when you have a 33k6 modem.

First you need to get the following software:

• Internet Junkbuster - to filter out advertisements.
• Squid - to make it go faster
• Any browser that supports memory cache.

1. Set up junkbuster to filter out most advertisements (like the ones above every E2 node). Even if you like the site, and feel they need the cash, remember that you have a 33k6 modem, while others have DSL or cable.
2. Get junkbuster to forward any data to squid (port 8080, if I recall correctly)
3. Now get squid to forward anything that can not be found to your ISP's web cache. (usually proxy.isp.net port 8080)
4. Set your browser's memory cache to something large (say, 16 MegaBytes).
5. Set the "do not compare" option, if your browser supports it.
6. Disable disk-cache in your browser, squid will handle it
7. Tell your browser to use the junkbuster proxy on localhost.

And you're off. I've gotten some amazing results with this (for example, noding goes at approx. 5kBps (dynamic pages))

November 29, 2001 update.

A while back I was toying around with ssh tunnels and thought of this:

• Get access to a machine with a fast internet connection.
• Install Junkbuster on it.
• Set up a compressed ssh tunnel which listens on port on localhost, and forwards it (over the compressed channel) to the remote host.
• Perform the steps mentioned above, except this time configure squid to use your junkbuster proxy (on the local port), rather than your isp's proxy.

There. Now you have gzip http access. Yes, it will slightly (read: hardly noticable) slow down downloading of images and files, but you can pull a 2000kB text-only file in with an odd 70kBps.