A web accelerator is a proxy server that reduces web site access times. They can be a self-contained hardware appliance or installable software.
Web accelerators may be installed on the client (browsing) computer / mobile device, on ISP servers, on the server computer/network, or a combination. Accelerating delivery through compression requires some type of host based server to collect, compress and then deliver content to a client computer.
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Web accelerators may use several techniques to achieve this reduction:
As of July 2006, these applications generally serve to improve dial-up, broadband and other connections from which users may not be getting the best speed. Many users can achieve a 2- to 10-times speed increase in average browsing experience, while some report a 5- to 20-times speed increases for specific web sites and pages. Many ISPs offer web accelerators as a part of their dial up and broadband services. Web accelerators are typically designed for web browsing and, sometimes, for e-mailing and can not improve speeds of streaming, gaming, P2P downloads or many other Internet applications. However, there is substantial work being done on client-side Web Accelerators for Application Delivery Networks by several companies including Cisco Systems and F5 Networks as the demand for SaaS and PaaS look set to grow among SMEs.
| Web client accelerator | Compression | Operating system |
Browser | Caching | Prefetching | Optimize code |
Preemptive hostname resolution |
Ad removal | Client | Connection | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CACHEbox | None | Appliance (Linux) | All | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | End user, ISP | Broadband, Satellite, Wireless, Fiber, DSL | Commercial |
| CProxy | Gzip, images | Windows | All | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | user | up to 756kbps | Free demo, full version 35USD per year |
| Fasterfox | None | Windows, Mac, Linux and Mobile devices | Firefox | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | user | Dialup, Wireless, Broadband, DSL | Free |
| fasTun | Images, text & any gzippable data | Any | Any | No | No | HTML CSS |
Yes | Yes | All | Any | Free |
| Freewire | Images and email attachments | Windows, except NT and 95 | Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher | ? | ? | No | No | No | ISP | Dial-up | local rate |
| Google Web Accelerator (discontinued) | Yes | Windows | Explorer, Firefox | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | user/Google server | Broadband | Free |
| Heigh Speed | None | Windows | Any | Yes | No | No | No | No | All | Any | Commercial |
| Netfury | Images, Text, Email, HTTP downloads | Windows, Mac | Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Netscape | Yes | No | No | No | No | End User, ISP | Dial-up, Broadband, DSL, ISDN, Satellite, Wireless | £24.99 |
| Nitro | Images, Text, Email, HTTP downloads | Windows, Mac | Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Netscape | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | End User, ISP | Dial-up, Broadband, DSL, ISDN, Satellite, Wireless | $29.95 a year |
| ONSPEED | Text & Images & Flash & Office Docs | Windows, Mac and Mobile devices | Any | No | No | No | No | No | user | Dialup, Wireless, Broadband, DSL | $49.99 (US) £24.99 pa Free (for users of BT Yahoo! Dialup Internet in the UK) |
| Polipo | None | Unix (Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, others), Windows | Any | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | user/ISP | Any | Free |
| Propel | Images, Text, Email, PDF, HTTP downloads | Windows, Mac | Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Netscape | Yes | No | No | No | No | End User, ISP | Dial, DSL, ISDN, Satellite, wireless | $44.95 US per year. Free with many ISP subscriptions |
| Proxyconn Web Accelerator | Text & Images & Flash & Office Docs | Windows, Mac, Mobile devices | Any | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | user | Dialup, Wireless, Broadband, DSL | $47.88 Yearly or $5.95 Monthly |
| RabbIT | Images, text & any gzippable data | Any system with Java 1.6 VM available | Any | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | ISP | Any | Free |
| Squid | None | Unix (Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, others), Windows | Any | Yes | No | No | No | No | user/ISP | Any | Free |
| Toonel | Text & Images | Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Symbian, WindowsMobile | Any | No | No | No | No | No | user/ISP | Any | Free |
| WinGate | Relies on origin | Windows (2000 onwards) | Any | Yes | No | No | No | No | All | Any | Commercial |
| Ziproxy | Images, text & any gzippable data | Unix (Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, others) | Any | No | No | HTML Javascript CSS |
Yes | Yes | ISP | Any | Free |
Other web accelerators are targeted at the web site or web application owners. This type of web accelerator is installed in front of web servers and application servers and use a variety of the above techniques to improve performance to all users accessing the accelerated web sites or web applications. Sometimes referred to as a Reverse proxy.
These type of server side accelerators has the added benefit of off-loading transactions and connection managements from the web or applications servers and hence, reducing its CPU utilisation and increasing web server or application scalability to handle more users with less bandwidth.
| Web server accelerator | Compression | Operating system |
Browser | Caching | Edge Side Includes | Prefetching | Optimize code |
Preemptive hostname resolution |
Ad removal | Client | Connection | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aiCache | Gzip | Linux | All | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | All | High Speed | Commercial |
| CACHEbox | None | Appliance (Linux) | All | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | End user, ISP | Broadband, Satellite, Wireless, Fiber, DSL | Commercial |
| LotServer | None | Linux, Windows | All | No | No | No | No | No | No | Content Provider | Any | Commercial |
| Polipo | None | Unix (Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, others), Windows | Any | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | user/ISP | Any | Free |
| SiteCelerate | Text & Images | ? | Any | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | user/ISP | Any | Per CPU |
| Squid | None | Unix (Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, others), Windows | Any | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | user/ISP | Any | Free |
| Varnish | Gzip on-the-fly compression and decompression | Unix (Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, Solaris, others) | Any | Yes | Yes (including stitching together compressed ESI fragments) | No | No | No | If You want. | All | Any | Free. Commercial support and services are available. |
| Ziproxy | Images, text & any gzippable data | Unix (Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, others) | Any | No | No | No | HTML Javascript CSS |
Yes | Yes | ISP | Any | Free |
There may be two sections to the proxy as well - a server portion sits in front of the Web server and captures the input and output from the server and a client portion sits in front of the end-users Web Browser to capture the input and output from the browser.