Free or inexpensive compression proxy

Question

I'm looking for a way to minimize the net traffic use with my netbook mobile internet connection. Recently I managed to install Opera Mini on the XP and the opera approach of compressing the data helped a lot. But I would like to do the same with my favorite browser using http proxy that compress the data "on the fly". But searching for "compression proxy servers" I could not find any working host/port links. Is it a brand-new technology and therefore expensive or rarely available?

Answer 1

I think it's just that the load on a server would be high and so not many people are able to offer this for free.

As you've mentioned, Opera does this as part of the Opera Turbo feature.

AOL's browser does this as well, if you fancy a taste of the past.

I'd recommend just using Opera - I don't use it myself, but it's not a bad browser.

Answer 2

I found an application that do the job, http://www.toonel.net, it's a java application that works as a proxy on the client side "toonelling" the queries and responses through their own servers. But the quick test shows that it gives worse results than Opera mini. The front page of superuser.com reports 80k uncompressed, 45 compressed while opera return 21k for the page.

Answer 3

Its avaliable and free for everyone. The software. But one needs a hardware to run it and use the given server as the proxy gateway. For example if I'd have a proxy like this (I have one actually), I wouldn't let public people use it since they can mess around the web using MY proxy which is under MY name. Like ruining webpage, doing something which is against a law, etc.

Anyway, I used Opera Turbo (which is quite slow) and then found Ziproxy. Asked a friend of mine if he could run an instance of it on his server and he agreed to the request. You should just ask around your friend. (Even your home server can do the job if speed is not your no1. point)

Answer 4

A quick Google search found this... http://www.visolve.com/vicompress/vicompress.html Looks like it's intended for use caching your own site. Wonder how it would react if "your own site" was a squid proxy...?

Answer 5

Unfortunately that's not how compression works on the internet. Most likely your host already uses compression and you don't know about it. You can check this for example with Firefox and a http header sniffer. There should be something written with gzip or bzip. All modern web server and most browser supports this technology. It's possible to choose between 3 compression algorithm. Hence you already pay for compressed traffic. Opera Mini is using another technology. They further compress the images to reduce bandwidth but it means you rely on Opera and the images are bad quality.