Hey mom, I made a webbrowser
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NOO , not that again! there have been articles about that crap before, apparently he used multiple connections to dl pages which result in a speed gain , because some webservers only allow one connection to dl at a certain speed , so if the webserver limits you to 5k per sec/connection , you can get a higher dl rate if you use multiconnections.. this has been used for AGES!!!!! , maybe not in a browser but in lots of fast download apps.. there are a few limitations to the idea to, 1) the webserver must support 'resume download' so that each connection can dl a specific chunk of data. 2) it wont work on ANY dynamic page such as asp and php , since you cant dl stuff in the middle of a page that has not yet been generated. //Roger
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How does that work? Surely if it uses 'resume' it will have to download one chunk, and then resume the download with the next chunk, effectively eliminating the speed gain.
no its easy, you can get the total filesize of an html page or file on a server , (supposing the webserver supports that feature) then you can simple tell your say 10 (async) connections to start downloading at pos 0,1000,2000, 3000,4000,5000,6000,7000,8000,9000 once one of the connections has finnished downloading its dedicated 1000 bytes it jumps to the next position , say 10000 and so on... also note , this trick will only work if the webserver in the other end sets a limit to each connection. if there is no limit other than the physical limit by the connection speed , it would just be as fast as one single connection and once everyone starts using a webbrowser with that exploits this technique , the intended result will be gone since everyone steals as much bandwith as any other user from the server. also , if this become poppulair , i guess webservers will change their xk/sec/connection limit to a xk/sec/ip instead which will make this completelty useless.. //Roger
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I seem to remember this story from early last year, I think SlashDot made a big fuss about it and gave the lad a (deserved) hard time. I don't think anybody has seen any code, it sounds like snakeoil to me - but time will tell. The article states he's applied for patents... I wonder if he's related to Bill Sergio ;-) Michael But you know when the truth is told, That you can get what you want or you can just get old, Your're going to kick off before you even get halfway through. When will you realise... Vienna waits for you? - "The Stranger," Billy Joel
Michael P Butler wrote: he's related to Bill Sergio Man that's a scary thought. Bill Sergio can multiply. :-D Chris Meech It's much easier to get rich telling people what they want to hear. Christopher Duncan I can't help getting older, but I refuse to grow up. Roger Wright I've been meaning to change my sig. Thanks! Alvaro Mendez We're more like a hobbiest in a Home Depot drooling at all the shiny power tools, rather than a craftsman that makes the chair to an exacting level of comfort by measuring the customer's butt. Marc Clifton
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http://www.electricnews.net/frontpage/news-9386805.html[^] It seems the lad got a 'Young Scientist of the year award' for a WebBrowser control container. Who the hell judges these things, VB programmers? It looks like he might have a talent for marketing though :) Ryan
The other thing is that _if_ the browser was a commercial success, the servers would be likly to fight back. If a server wants a speed limit of 55kbps, and then finds everyone sidestepping this limitation, the server will just do some other kind of speed limiting - like only allowing one connection from a given IP. So the mega-broswer won't stay mega for very long - as long as it takes all the webservers to get wise to this trick! Joel Holdsworth
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The other thing is that _if_ the browser was a commercial success, the servers would be likly to fight back. If a server wants a speed limit of 55kbps, and then finds everyone sidestepping this limitation, the server will just do some other kind of speed limiting - like only allowing one connection from a given IP. So the mega-broswer won't stay mega for very long - as long as it takes all the webservers to get wise to this trick! Joel Holdsworth
Joel Holdsworth wrote: as long as it takes all the webservers to get wise to this trick! They should already do just that. The HTTP spec limits the number of connections to 2 anyway. So this guys "multiple connection" stuff probably only works in the lab, where he's set up Apache or IIS or whatever to handle $bignum connections instead of 2, which is what everyone else and his dog uses -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
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http://www.electricnews.net/frontpage/news-9386805.html[^] It seems the lad got a 'Young Scientist of the year award' for a WebBrowser control container. Who the hell judges these things, VB programmers? It looks like he might have a talent for marketing though :) Ryan
Toby Jacob Rhodes seems to have done a lot of work on an alternative 'web browser', but rather than go for HTML he has designed his own system. See a list of his articles http://www.codeproject.com/script/Articles/list_articles.asp?userid=47237[^]. The best one is http://www.codeproject.com/Purgatory/globalwebapp.asp[^]. You must have a look at his homepage http://sevenmilesearch.com[^] and especially, this page http://www.sevenmilesearch.com/contactus.asp[^] :~ :-D I think it is wrong to encourage people too much. Yes, it is all very well saying "well done" and so on, but it is cruel to make some guy think they are going to become a millionaire, only to find they sell 0.0 units. That sort of thing could completely crush their spirit. I suppose anyone who claims to be the new god of something is setting themselves up for a fall :|
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I seem to remember this story from early last year, I think SlashDot made a big fuss about it and gave the lad a (deserved) hard time. I don't think anybody has seen any code, it sounds like snakeoil to me - but time will tell. The article states he's applied for patents... I wonder if he's related to Bill Sergio ;-) Michael But you know when the truth is told, That you can get what you want or you can just get old, Your're going to kick off before you even get halfway through. When will you realise... Vienna waits for you? - "The Stranger," Billy Joel
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Joel Holdsworth wrote: as long as it takes all the webservers to get wise to this trick! They should already do just that. The HTTP spec limits the number of connections to 2 anyway. So this guys "multiple connection" stuff probably only works in the lab, where he's set up Apache or IIS or whatever to handle $bignum connections instead of 2, which is what everyone else and his dog uses -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
I could be wrong...but... I think the 2 connection limit is a client side thing. If you actually limited your web server to 2 connections per IP address, you'd be really screwing over anyone behind a NAT. For instance, an office of 2000 people would all look like one IP address to your web server. If you limited your web server to 2 connections per IP, only one person could effectively browse your site at a time in that office.
I, for one, do not think the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.
-David St. Hubbins -
I could be wrong...but... I think the 2 connection limit is a client side thing. If you actually limited your web server to 2 connections per IP address, you'd be really screwing over anyone behind a NAT. For instance, an office of 2000 people would all look like one IP address to your web server. If you limited your web server to 2 connections per IP, only one person could effectively browse your site at a time in that office.
I, for one, do not think the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.
-David St. HubbinsKentamanos wrote: I think the 2 connection limit is a client side thing. It's not an "IP" thing as such. I think it's on a connection/request basis (so probably IP/Port? This is where my knowledge runs out :-) -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
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Kentamanos wrote: I think the 2 connection limit is a client side thing. It's not an "IP" thing as such. I think it's on a connection/request basis (so probably IP/Port? This is where my knowledge runs out :-) -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
Everyone's on the same external port though (80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS). A web server really can't tell the difference between two different people behind a NAT short of session data like cookies. You could limit it using cookies, but you'd have to make all your resources check for those cookies (including images etc.). If you did that though, I think you'd end up upsetting privacy freaks (those people who wear tin foil hats to keep the govenment from reading their minds). ;)
I, for one, do not think the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.
-David St. Hubbins -
Everyone's on the same external port though (80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS). A web server really can't tell the difference between two different people behind a NAT short of session data like cookies. You could limit it using cookies, but you'd have to make all your resources check for those cookies (including images etc.). If you did that though, I think you'd end up upsetting privacy freaks (those people who wear tin foil hats to keep the govenment from reading their minds). ;)
I, for one, do not think the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.
-David St. HubbinsKentamanos wrote: Everyone's on the same external port though (80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS). :doh: Of course. Well, even if it's a client thing, it's part of the HTTP specification, and should not be ignored just because you can. And as for the other issue you raise - it's only a problem if everyone is accessing the same site at the same time. -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
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Kentamanos wrote: Everyone's on the same external port though (80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS). :doh: Of course. Well, even if it's a client thing, it's part of the HTTP specification, and should not be ignored just because you can. And as for the other issue you raise - it's only a problem if everyone is accessing the same site at the same time. -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
I agree his browser is not "playing nice", but I definitely don't think you want to configure your web server to only allow two connections per IP address. There's some big NAT's out there :). Every method that I can think of which would combat his approach would hurt "legitimate" users. I could be missing something though...
I, for one, do not think the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.
-David St. Hubbins