Use hash to reduce traffic

Hi there!

I just had an idea how traffic on the web could be dramatically reduced.
May be that it is already implemented in some way and I just do not know
about it.

Now the idea:
Integrate a request command to http which will be replied by the hash of
the page only. Based on this information the webbrowser or proxy could
decide whether it needs to download the whole page or not. Moreover a
html tag could indicate pseudo-new information like timestamps and make
this hash even more effective.

That's it. Little idea, lot of work and great improvement (at least I
assume that, otherwise I would not bother anybody with it). Thanks for
your time and I would be glad to get some comments on that.

Bye Tim

Received on Monday, 5 May 2003 11:05:44 UTC