Hypertext articles – Ctrl blog

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The web runs on a really powerful protocol,which is often misunderstood and underused. Here I explore the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol to help you make better websites.

Pushing redirect destinations with HTTP/2

Accelerate redirects with HTTP/2 server push

You can achieve low-latency responses to redirects with HTTP/2 by pushing the resource at the redirected location along with the response that informs the web browser about the redirect. It’s even easy to setup.

Unknown state of Wi-Fi

How caching affects internet connectivity tests

Windows 8.1 and older did a better job of detecting “captive portals” (Wi-Fi networks that require logins) and determining whether the state of a computer’s internet connection than Windows 10. Android has never been good at it. I…

Decentraleyes JavaScript CDN

Embed a JavaScript CDN in your web browser with Decentraleyes

Decentraleyes is a browser extension for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome that acts as a content delivery network (CDN) for popular JavaScript libraries right from within your own browser. This reduces page load times and bandwidth costs as…

Referer header from a bug tracker

Do private bug trackers leak data on security vulnerabilities and other known issues?

Private bug trackers disclose data about bug reports to any website that publishes information about security vulnerabilities or other issues that affect the organization.

Comparison of image compression rates

New Save-Data HTTP header tells websites to reduce their data usage

Some users are okay with a slightly degraded user experience and lower image quality in exchange for lower data usage and costs savings. There haven’t been a standard way of letting websites know about this preference before, but…

Ookla Speedtest and Microsoft Network Speed Test

Network speed testing apps on Windows 10: Ookla or Microsoft?

Which is the better network speed testing app for Windows: Microsoft Network Speed Test or Ookla Speedtest? One wins by default as the other is entirely incompetent and created without much knowledge of decades old technologies!

“Unable to connect to the proxy server” error on an Android phone

How-to use the same Host header for origin and proxy server using Apache mod_proxy

An origin server should use the same hostname as any [caching] reverse-proxy gateways that are made available to the public web. Otherwise, you can end up leaking the hostname or IP address of the origin server, and get…

Water droplet conducting

Caring for old links after moving domain and reorganizing pages

At the same as I moved this blog to a new domain, I took the opportunity to restructure and reorganizing all the existing URLs. This in turn gave me the opportunity to jot down some thoughts on things…

Laptop showing message from Wayback Machine

Navigate around dead links with the Wayback Machine browser extension

Do you think most of the people around you know at least a few HTTP status codes? Unfortunately, if any – they’re likely to familiar with at least 404 Not Found and 500 Server Error. If you spend…

Cortana persona with icons from different web browsers

Open links force-opened in Microsoft Edge in your default browser

Microsoft really wants Windows 10 users to chooselove their new Microsoft Edge web browser. Users don’t even need to choose it as their default browser, because seemingly normal web links all over Windows 10 and the Cortana digital…