Question

One of the main flaws of video- or audio- providing sites is that some sites with overloaded or slow servers take an inordinate amount of time to stream their media. A simple solution to this shortcoming is a "public cache" created on computers with this option enabled. The cache would store data compressed by the browser; When another browser notices a slow load time, it sends out a small data packet. Any browser noticing that the identifiers in the packet match those in the cache, it unpacks and transmits the data. The process would only work when both browsers are on, and all transfers would work in the "background," meaning that only unused processor power and bandwidth are used. I know that this is a very imperfect idea as of now. Comments are very welcome.

Answer 1

Hmm. 2 things:

• I don't have unlimited bandwidth. What if this tool eats my bandwidth without me noticing?
• What we also need is user managed cache. Ok, not by every user, maybe even not by many, but that's cool. Who uses about:config anyway? User managed cache would mean I can get anything from the cache and lock it, copy it, know where it comes from in an organised way, transfer it between computers, and even maybe share it on the net as you propose. Right now, I have no control. I want that power. Badly.

Answer 2

I've been thinking about this before, to be able to share cache using P2P methods would be nice and improve performance for sites with large files.

I'm thinking about things like video hosting sites and browser games, etc. And a lot of other things too. Anything with a few large files would benefit from it.