Web accelerator

A web accelerator is a proxy server that reduces web site access times. Web accelerators may use several techniques to achieve this reduction:

• They may cache recently or frequently accessed documents so they may be sent to the client with less latency or at a faster transfer rate than the remote server could.
• They may prefetch documents that are likely to be accessed in the near future.
• They may compress documents to a smaller size, for example by reducing the quality of images or by sending only what's changed since the document was last requested.
• They may filter out ads and other undesirable objects so they are not sent to the client at all.
• They may maintain persistent TCP connections between the client and the proxy server.

As of June 2005, these applications generally serve to improve dial-up and other low speed connections. Many users can acheive up to 5 to 10 times speed increases for specific web pages, and many acheive 2 to 3 times speed increases as an average browsing experience.

Google's Web Accelerator has attempted to improve broadband access to the sites. Moreover, they are designed for web browsing and, sometimes, for e-mailing and can not improve speeds of streaming, gaming, P2P downloads or many other internet applications. Many ISPs offer web accelerators as a part of their dial up service.

References and External Links: Proxyconn Web Accelerator Opera Mobile Accelerator, and Google Web Accelerator