Alleviating the Latency and Bandwidth Problems in WWW Browsing

This work addresses three problems that are associated with Web browsing: (a) low bandwidth available to the end user who is connected via slow modems or outdoor wireless networks, (b) long and variable latencies in document access, and (c) temporary disconnections of mobile users. Three techniques are used with a variety of heuristics in order to overcome these problems: (a) profiling user and group access patterns and using these profiles in order to pre-fetch documents, (b) filtering HTTP requests and responses in order to reduce data transmission over bottleneck links, and (c) hoarding documents based on user profiles in order to support limited web browsing even during disconnection. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of a WWW proxy-based system that incorporates the above techniques. We describe our experiences with the proxy system, and present performance results that show an improvement in the experience of Web browsing using this system.