[tor-bugs] #3890 [Tor bundles/installation]: Applications should start using optimistic data

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#3890: Applications should start using optimistic data
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 Reporter:  nickm                     |          Owner:  erinn
     Type:  enhancement               |         Status:  new  
 Priority:  major                     |      Milestone:       
Component:  Tor bundles/installation  |        Version:       
 Keywords:  SponsorZ                  |         Parent:  #5456
   Points:                            |   Actualpoints:       
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Comment(by iang):

 Ah, I just realized what "eli5" meant.  :-p  How's this?

 As we know, Tor is somewhat slow.  This slowness is made worse by the
 following problem:

 The way Tor works now, when your Tor browser wants to connect to a website
 (say BBC), it sends a message over the Tor network to an exit node,
 telling it to connect to the BBC (this is slow because sending messages
 over the Tor network is slow).  The exit node connects to the BBC web
 server, and reports back to the Tor browser (over the Tor network) that it
 has succeeded.  (This is slow because sending messages over the Tor
 network is slow).  The Tor browser then sends a message to the BBC web
 server (over the Tor network) asking for a particular web page.  (This is
 slow because sending messages over the Tor network is slow).

 The key idea behind this improvement is to bundle the "which web page to
 get" message along with the "connect to the BBC web server" message.  So
 with this improvement, it would look like:

 When your Tor browser wants to connect to a website (say BBC), it sends a
 message over the Tor network to an exit node, telling it to connect to the
 BBC *and fetch a particular web page* (this is slow because sending
 messages over the Tor network is slow).  The exit node connects to the BBC
 web server, and when it succeeds, the *exit node* then sends a message to
 the BBC web server (*not* over the Tor network) asking for the particular
 web page.  This saves a round trip over the Tor network, and should make
 the Tor network much more responsive for web browsing.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/3890#comment:12>
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