This page will show you how to configure your Web Browser software to use use the CCIS proxy cache server.

• Why should I use a Proxy-Cache while I'm directly on the internet?

Good question! The whole idea is by sharing an enormous cache together on a local network that this will decrease the access time for retrieving WWW documents. All the pictures and large items are cached, checked, and if not changed, served by the proxy-cache over our local network. If a new item is requested then the proxy will retrieve it. Meanwhile pushing the data to the client.

Here is a summary of some benefits:

• significant speed benefits to the individual user when accessing popular documents
• insignificant delay for a fresh copy of a document
• reduction on international network usage, for all, allowing quicker access to those documents not previously retrieved.

 

• How do I know that documents are up-to-date?

Unfortunately we cannot guarantee that your documents are up-to-date. That would require a network connection for every request. While this would not be quite as bad as the current situation it would be pretty close.

What we can say is that in general documents should not be more than 12 hours out-of-date. A documents date is checked once it has been in the cache for longer than that period. Documents are also checked more frequently if they are seen to change frequently. Images and very large files are not checked as frequently, unless they are changing often.

• What are the caching options available?

The model of a single publisher and several distributed readers used by the World-Wide Web is not optimal on a network constrained by bandwidth. Distributing the effort of publishing, and bringing the publishers closer to the readers makes the Web significantly more scalable.

Currently, the options are:

• No caching

You are of course free to use no caching at all. By default your browser will probably connect directly to the Internet and allow you to retrieve documents from all over the world. Unfortunately you will also suffer from, and contribute to, the bandwidth crisis. A significant number of the documents that you request will take longer to find their way to your machine.

• Using built in browser caching

Most modern browsers now support some form of local caching where recently accessed documents are kept in your machines memory or on its disk. This means that you will get a fast response when going back to pages that you have already seen. You will not however benefit from the browsing of other Web users. Every time you request a document that you have not seen recently you will experience the same delays as mentioned above. Depending upon how you configure your browser's cache you may also suffer from out of date documents.

• Using the local cache at CCIS

The cache operated by CCIS is the first step towards a more scalable Web. If you use this service, you will benefit as a result of the fact that there are many other users also using the service with you. Any page that any of those users has visited recently will be available to you as fast as the proxy can deliver it. Currently this means more than 700 G Bytes of Web documents.

California City Internet Inc.   Mark & Tammy Ross 760-373-5707     mark@ccis.com