Re: Questions about Internet Packet Losses

One of the nice things about proxy servers and web caches is they mask end user host stack inadequacy, and thus (I allege) tend to increase MTUs and encourage better network utilization (in additional to the normal benefits of caching).

Proxy servers can also maintain persistent long/medium term HTTP 1.1 connections that the clients are too dumb to maintain themselves, thus getting streaming without requiring client upgrades.