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The software and protocols associated with information browsing systems are
largely designed with static hosts and wired networks in mind, HTTP
and the Web are a case in point. Static hosts are connected to wired, high
bandwidth networks, and are capable of transmitting and receiving large
amounts of data without significant delays. As such, the size and format of
the data files being received by the browser/client has never been a
concern. However, this causes problems when information access is desired on
mobile hosts (MH), since data transmission over a wireless network is much
slower than on a wired network. Mobile computers are also relatively
resource-poor, compared to their desktop counterparts. This fact is ignored by
HTTP servers, and large data files are transmitted to computers that cannot
properly display them. Also, mobile computers operate in constantly changing
network environments. It is possible for a mobile computer to become
temporarily disconnected from a network when it changes base stations or goes
out of range of a base station. A mobile host may also doze off to preserve
battery power and thus be disconnected. The information browsing system and
protocols assocaiated with mobile computers should thus be able to tolerate
the fault of temporary disconnection.
These problems have been recognized in academic literature since the
mid 90s. Mowser, an active project since 1994, has been focused on
addressing these problems in the context of web browsing from a mobile
host. The current model of Web browsing is inherently sequential, and
wasteful of bandwidth. Our research investigates an efficient model
for browsing and describes the design of a smart Web browsing
application which operates based on the user's available resources and
manages disconnection. Initial work on Mowser focussed on a Proxy
oriented approach. More recent work has combined end--end and proxy
approaches, and is implemented as a Apache module.
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