[Gllug] webcaches

[Adam Bower]

Daniel Andersson wrote:
> what do people have against isps having webcaches in place?
> 
> blueyonder have a webcache, which i'm forced to use
> and i've never had any problems with it
> 
> is the "only" problem badly setup webcaches or am i missing something?

A webcache is a great idea, except when you can't circumvent it when it 
goes wrong you can't use the web. Also some caches cache more than just 
http and sometimes do it very wrong, I remember once on freeserve trying 
to download an 18Meg game patch via their service and they forced me to 
use their webcache which had a broken version of the file. There was 
nothing I could do about it and had to go onto a paid dialup to get the 
file. Also caches which don't update pages in the cache and allow you to 
force refresh the page are annoying. Also it can break things like http 
headers etc. which is also annoying if you are in the webserver business 
and need to get raw http data to do customer analysis on your products 
like happened to me while working for a firm in Cambridge who had an NTL 
business connection (they nearly lost our business when they said they 
couldn't/wouldn't turn it off, but they did after I think we told them 
we would change suppliers that day). I could probably think of more 
things but you get the general idea.

Adam


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