[LINK] wikipedia to beat porn

Craig Sanders cas at taz.net.au
Tue Nov 14 13:35:04 AEDT 2006


On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 12:51:25PM +1100, Chris Maltby wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 12, 2006 at 09:58:42AM +1100, Adam Todd wrote:
> > I fail to understand why people who run web sites insist on HTTP as
> > the primary file transfer mechanism when 99.9% of browsers have the
> > ability to FTP and it's far faster, etc.
>
> The underlying speed is exactly the same, though FTP can be hard to
> tunnel because it uses out-of-band signalling. I find fetching stuff
> via HTTP is generally much quicker because most ISPs operate large
> transparent HTTP proxy caches.

there's also less start-up time because unlike ftp, there's no need to
login (even for anonymous ftp), so less round-trips before initiating
the download.

only an ignorant, ill-informed, moronic-opinioned idiot like Todd would
think that ftp is faster than http. even ignoring the login delay, the
ftp protocol has a lot more overhead than http.

and http can do pipelining, which avoids the session-establishment
round-trip delay for subsequent/related request (e.g. a html page and
associated images).

of course, ftp effectively does the same thing - but only when you're
actually using an ftp client that keeps the connection open (as most
do). no browser or proxy cache does that, so it has to open a separate
connection for each ftp:// url.


but i shouldn't let facts get in the way. after all, todd probably
invented ftp and http, while on a short break from inventing the
internet and sliced bread.


craig

ps: there are transparent proxying tools for ftp too. they aren't in
common use like http proxies are. most of them intercept the ftp request
and forward it to a proxy cache like squid.

e.g. frox:

Package: frox
Version: 0.7.18-3
Description: Transparent caching ftp proxy
 Frox is an FTP proxy with the following features.
  - Written with security in mind, default setup runs as a non-root user in
    a chroot jail.
  - It supports caching of FTP downloads, either through a local cache, or
    by redirecting connections through another proxy such as squid.
  - Downloads may be transparently scanned for viruses (through an external
    scanner).
  - Controllable via scripts, there is an interface for writing scripts to
    add features or modify frox's behavior, examples included.
 .
 Transparent proxy support is not automatically setup by this package.
Tag: filetransfer::ftp, interface::daemon, protocol::ftp, role::sw:server,
use::proxying, works-with::file


-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)



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