About HTTP 1.1 Cache

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> That's why Privoxy can randomize the time within ranges that
> are unlikely to cause revalidation failures:
> http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html#HIDE-IF-MODIFIED-SINCE
> http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html#OVERWRITE-LAST-MODIFIED

I believe you're referring to the following functionality:

  > The "randomize" option overwrites the value of the
  > "Last-Modified:" header with a randomly chosen time between the
  > original value and the current time.

Most servers treat Last-Modified values as opaque validators --
i.e. ``IMS: foo'' matches if the modification date is not exactly foo,
rather than matching if the modification date is more recent than foo.
Hence, in practice the randomize setting will bust the cache.

(The reason for that is that this approach is more reliable in the
presence of broken clocks somewhere in the universe.)

> Therefore it's questionable if anyone is going to bother.

We're in violent agreement.

                                        Juliusz