Re: Is there a compressed nntp protocol?

[jonkv@ida.liu.se (Jonas Kvarnström)]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> > Now that I use agent... I was just wondering if there is compressed "mode"
> > in NNTP. After all, when downloading headers and bodies, a compression would
> > do miracles...
> 
> If you're downloading over modem, it wouldn't mean much at all, since
> modems compress on-the-fly.

(Oops -- I replied to this a couple of days ago, but it seems I send a
private reply instead of following up to the mailing list...  Here's
my reply again.)

Unless the modem on the other side has a slow serial connection to the
server computer (which is the case for my connection).  Even with
33600 bps modems you would need a 115200 bps connection to the
computer, and with a 57600 bps modem you'd need an even faster
connection.

I'm currently tunneling the NNTP connection via SSH.  This gives me a
compression of about 3:1 and much better performance than when I only
used the built-in compression in the modem.  (I use "suck", not the
agent features.  Normally I run a couple of parallel "suck" programs
in order to use the available bandwidth better.)