Proxies are common method to access sites, you can’t see directly. On other hand they are bothersome to look for and don’t really fit if you are using proxy already.
PicPick Tools homepage has started blocking me (no idea why, usually this is a case of crazy ant-spam plugin) and since I needed access for Appnews updates… I searched and found Coral – distributed content delivery system that can act as proxy and cache for online resources.
What it does
Coral’s goal is to provide free (for a change :) CDN solution that can help you solve network limitations for webmasters or people browsing either.
coral_cdn
Technically it is network of servers (info puts quantity at hundreds, but site is outdated so I have no idea how is current state) that serve any web content through specially formatted URL.
To request something through Coral you simply append .nyud.net to domain in URL like https://www.rarst.net.nyud.net/
Strong features
Free and easy to use. Most of services in this area offer one but few offer both.
Downsides
For web masters there are some limitations to consider:
- serving files through Coral may add considerable resolve and connect time, up to 4 seconds from few quick speed tests I ran. If used for multiply files this may add up fast and ugly.
- 50MB size limitation prevents from using it for really heavy content.
For browsing it works fine. Only inconvenience I encountered that there is no mode to change all resources on page to Coral – only page itself goes through cache and rest of stuff on it retains original URLs.
Overall
Unsure if this liable cache option for sites. Excellent alternative to proxies for browsing.
Transcontinental #
Rarst #