Object Cache and Pipelining

The proxy is the ideal place to have an object cache. This should make sense intuitively. You have multiple users accessing the internet from the same location. Many of them will go to the same web sites, so caching objects from those sites locally, means more bandwidth available to all users to access the internet. It also means faster access for users to content when their requests match objects already in the cache. Objects can be anything stored on a web page, documents, images, video, or audio files.

For objects that aren't a cache hit (a first time visit by any user to a website), pipelining can help speed up access to that page. By retrieving objects in parallel instead of serially (where you have to wait for one object to finish loading before fetching the next), you can load the contents into the cache and the destination browser much more quickly than a traditional fetch.

Object caching does have its denigrators. Depending on the implementation, object caches have been criticized for containing stale data. In today's on-demand 24x7 world, having the up-to-the-minute information is key. Likewise, your object cache needs to have algorithms that help it detect when data changes. Technologies like adaptive refresh, keep track of the types of data in an object cache, and can determine based on the data type how often that data type is likely to change, and check the server for "freshness" of the data, even if there hasn't been a recent request for that data.

With the right proxy there's no reason not to have an object cache and all the benefits of caching. Look for adaptive refresh and pipelining to help speed your internet access.