Matt’s totally correct on the browser requesting the info, so it’s up to the client to decide what to download even obfuscated javascript links. My question would be how far can compression take you for something like Opera which does some compression in browser with a caching server? I figure a lot of websites are probably using more uncompressed formats like PNG, which can probably be compressed a bit more, but it’s still like taking a tar ball. If a server in sending gzip’d text and the browser/cache are compressing that how much more can be gained? Compression of compression with even more compression to me is probably more like a downward spiral.
On Sep 10, 2015, at 10:54 PM, Matthew Petach <mpetach@netflight.com> wrote:
On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 6:14 PM, Scott Weeks <surfer@mauigateway.com> wrote:
...
Someone told me that there is a way for the browser to say to the web server, send me only the parts of the web page I request. For example, send me everything but the flash and images. Being a browser wuss I thought the web server just sent everything and the browser decided whether to display it or not. That would mean the data already was transferred over the expensive sat link incurring the data costs.
scott
Just wanted to clear one point up...
The web is *not* a "push" model; it's a "pull" model.
The HTML document is nothing but a text document which has references to other elements that are available to the browser, should it choose to request them; but it is incumbent upon the browser to request each and every one of those other elements from the server before they are transferred. The server will not send something that was not first requested by the browser.
It's misunderstandings like this that make content providers twitch every time an eyeball network says "well you're *sending* all this data at my network" -- absolutely nothing is being sent that was not explicitly requested by the browser first. ^_^;
Thanks!
Matt