Is it time for NTL to ditch the proxies?

[ntl customer]

It's been ages since I've been an NTL customer, but I see that the old problems that were around with the proxies have reared its ugly head again, and continue to do so on a fairly regular basis. And it appears their DNS system has completely fallen over too, causing massive outages.

The proxies were one of the big reasons why I dumped NTL - they caused more problems for me as an end user than they solved. They call them 'transparent' but they could not be more obvious than an England fan sitting in the rival's quarter of the stadium during a World Cup match.

When they work, they're OK, but still cause problems with sites whose systems block the proxy IPs - .e.g rapidshare. I think 3 years of proxy free browsing on Pipex has been the best thing ever. Pretty much everything is spot on, whilst there has been the odd day when there have been problems, these have been few and far between.

So, do you think it's time to dump the proxies for good?

[punky]

Proxies should be ditched... They were designed to speed up browsing a long time ago, with problems that don't exist now:

1. People had slow dialup (9.6 - 28.8k baud), so getting the maximum speed was paramount - that meant a cached version from the ISP

2. The Internet wasn't as well developed back then. Page fetches took a lot longer and any problem with routes and re-rerouting was automatically more significant then.

3. Server technology and server network connections have grown a lot. They can serve pages now at a speed negligable from what the ISP can out of a cache.

4. Website deployment on the Internet has changed. Its no longer in weeks for updates anymore, its in seconds. Most people want real-time data as it is now, not a cached version hours ago.

5. Server-side scripting like PHP and ASP for dynamic web content is becoming so popular now, as is the need for dynamic results.

In this day and age of 1mb+ connections and extremely well-maintained networks, proxies are defunct. Proxies were initially a plaster that were put over then-difficiencies in the Internet to help stimulate growth. Technology has done away with the need for them.

[Mick]

Just move to Manchester - Proxies have been off a long time here now.

[dunkyb]

They're awful, given me nothing but hell ... again tonight .. web browsing soo slow and kludgy :/

I remember when we were without them for a month or so in this area, browsing was amazing!...

[Sahil]

The only thing that really annoyes me with proxies are those websites like mega upload and rapid share becuase everyone is routed through the proxies with the same IP I get errors.

Plus the fact that they dont accept download managers =[

[Chicken]

Originally Posted by Sahil

The only thing that really annoyes me with proxies are those websites like mega upload and rapid share becuase everyone is routed through the proxies with the same IP I get errors.

That's a fault of the website, not the proxies. The IP of the originating connection can be sent through the proxies if asked correctly.

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by Mick

Just move to Manchester - Proxies have been off a long time here now.

that's strange because recently I've had to do the proxy dance on occasions when my pages dont come up and I'm in manchester.

[Mal]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

that's strange because recently I've had to do the proxy dance on occasions when my pages dont come up and I'm in manchester.

Well, according to the connection link on the toolbar above, I'm not on a proxy either, yet due to the recent issues, I had to change between a proxy or the norm.

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by Mick

Just move to Manchester - Proxies have been off a long time here now.

I've checked via the proxy testing links on robin walkers pages - both tests show I'm on a proxy at baguley so Mick check your connection as you could be wrong about it.

http://www.all-nettools.com/toolbox,net
http://www.broadband-help.com/tools/clientInfo.aspx

[Mal]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

I've checked via the proxy testing links on robin walkers pages - both tests show I'm on a proxy at baguley so Mick check your connection as you could be wrong about it.

http://www.all-nettools.com/toolbox,net
http://www.broadband-help.com/tools/clientInfo.aspx

Both of those tests show that No proxy detected for me. Baguely as well.

[FusionXN1]

Maybe this should be brung to NTL's attention? I mean I'm on a dam proxy and I'm with BT no wonder sometimes i have to wait ages to get something from rapidshare or megaupload as it thinks I'm the one who has downloaded something.

Ahh dam! Anyway ya I would let NTL know about this I know everyone doesn't want them

[deathtrap3000]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

I've checked via the proxy testing links on robin walkers pages - both tests show I'm on a proxy at baguley so Mick check your connection as you could be wrong about it.

http://www.all-nettools.com/toolbox,net
http://www.broadband-help.com/tools/clientInfo.aspx

i ran both those tests and they also said i wasnt using a proxie.
Im in London

[FusionXN1]

Originally Posted by deathtrap3000

i ran both those tests and they also said i wasnt using a proxie.
Im in London

What speed and modem do people have with and without proxies?

[homealone]

Originally Posted by FusionXN1

What speed and modem do people have with and without proxies?

I'm not sure who can answer that, afaik, whether or not you are 'proxied', isn't an user option on the NTL network??

<edit> although which proxy you use is optional, of course

[Stuart C]

Well, I'll always remember one of our lecturers at Uni (years back, when most of the Internet was on 14.4 modems) giving us a lecture on exactly why proxies are bad, and should be forbidden.

The upshot was they are too easy to misconfigure, and a misconfigured (or malfunctioning) proxy causes more trouble than it's worth.

From experience, I think he is right.