Re: [squid-users] anyone know off hand where squid helps browsing on debian?

Mike Marchywka wrote:
> Anyone know off hand how much squid can contribute to browsing speed on
> various platforms due to DNS caching? I just setup a debian system and
> notice while browsing I had very low BW at times. I suspected it
> may have been doing lots of DNS lookups since there
> were
> lots of long delays ( I guess I could have looked at packet traffic but
> was too lazy). Anyway, apt-get install on squid and setup iceweasel to
> use it seems to have done the trick. BW monitor shows I'm getting more
> throughput and browser responds a lot better. Anyone know off hand what
> DNS or other caching is on debian by default and where an
> out-of-the-box squid install is likely to fix anything?
>
> Thanks.
>

Ah. One of the difficult questions.

The answer to that depends *very* heavily on the user(s) and fluctuates
wildly over time the fewer users there are.

Going from earlier comments and my own experiences I'd _estimate_ it
somewhere around these values:
  1-5 users: 5%+ (all the way up to 80% over any given hour).
  6-20 users: 10%+ (up to 60% over any given hour).
  20+ users: 5%-45%

As the users go up the minimum rises and the wild top settles down to
anywhere between 20% and 45% for a regular forward proxy. The balance
point depends on the quality of web design at the visited sites, and can
be influenced up towards the 40%+ by the squid.conf settings.

Talk from medium-sizes ISPs last year indicated that there was probably
some tipping point in the hundreds or thousands of users where the
request churn starts simply pushing the hit-rate benefits down towards
nothing again. This seems to only be resolved by using more caches, or
more efficient Squid with better hardware, larger cache etc. These are
the folks 2.7 is maintained for at present.

Amos

-- 
Please be using
   Current Stable Squid 2.7.STABLE7 or 3.0.STABLE20
   Current Beta Squid 3.1.0.15