accelerated download proposal

Hello all,

I recently had a cable modem installed. Unfortunatly, there is a
per-connection rate limit at 40Kbps. While using "Download Accelerator" for
Windows, I have seen upwards of 350-400Kbps.

Download Accelerator, for those of you that do not know, is a software
product that (among other things) attempts to accel downloads by using
multible connections. It basically gets part of the file, while another
thread starts where the previous thread is going to stop. Then it reassembles
the chunks.

I propose implementing this in squid. I would never suggest that it should be
enabled per default as it can cause problems on systems starved for FDs or
ports. For the home user with broadband and a proxy server, it will be quite
benificial. Not only would it get rid of the need for desktop software for
machines behind the proxy, it would enable clients using the proxy to
accellerate downloads on OSes that are not supported by accelerator tools.
(Everything but Windows I think)

I don't see any problems that would be made by putting this functionality
into squid except perhaps using desktop software and the proxy at the same
time. I plan on spending some time this weekend learning the architecture of
the devel version.

I am very open to suggestions, questions, flames, etc. I would be able to
code this, but I don't want to put any time into it unless it can be included
in the main distribution or if there is a module/plugin interface with which
it can interact.

Please let me have your thoughts,

-Nick

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Joseph Nicholas Yarbrough
Information Security Analyst
LURHQ Corporation