8

Opera 10 has a nice turbo mode where all requests are re-routed to Opera's servers ( global-turbo-x.opera-mini.net ) where the pages are compressed and sent back to the client browser. Consequently all requests to a site arise from that server instead of the actual server.

Yesterday I was unable to access SO[FU] from Opera. Initially I thought SO[FU] was down, but when I checked from my iPhone, the sites were accessible. I tried again in Opera, this time with "Turbo" mode Off, and yep I was able to access. Turn it on, and SO[FU] just refuses connections.

alt text http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/8494/serverrefusestoperformr.png

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  • 5
    Do you really need Turbo mode?
    – random
    Jan 22, 2010 at 5:55
  • Yes. The place I'm at has a 2.5GB BW Cap. For a month. Jan 22, 2010 at 6:14
  • 5
    That's quite a lot for a cap. You must be outside of Australia.
    – random
    Jan 22, 2010 at 6:19
  • @Random I'm from India. Currently at my folks' place, where they have this connection as their usage isn't much. Of course when I'm here the bill hikes up Jan 22, 2010 at 6:33
  • I use SO with Opera Mini all the time - no problems. I don't see how you can be so sure Opera is NOT to blame. Jan 22, 2010 at 7:22
  • I have 2 Windows, one with Turbo, other without. Without turbo - it opens. With turbo - above message. Jan 22, 2010 at 8:16
  • 10
    Are you playing Gnometris and Freecell at the same time?
    – Felix
    Jan 22, 2010 at 10:15
  • 8
    Way to go Opera for trying to revive that "TURBO" button I had on the front my my 33mhz 386.
    – snicker
    Jan 22, 2010 at 18:03
  • 1
    @snicker ahahaha I hear ya! Jan 22, 2010 at 18:07

1 Answer 1

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The value of this should be fairly limited, since

  • we are pretty aggressive about making sure all our HTTP requests come back compressed

  • the site itself has almost no images

  • we don't host images here in posts (all external image hosts)

  • we run pngout on all our .png images so they're as small as they can be

(now, there are exceptions around stuff that IIS7 has cached, like RSS feeds, which we haven't quite figured out. But in typical use of the site, 95% of your requests should be compressed. Verify in the sniffer if you like.. we have!)

edit: it looks like opera's "Turbo Mode" proxies are intentionally retrieving pages uncompressed and getting banned for anomalous bandwidth use per day. That's ... ironic.

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  • 1
    Oh Opera, what are you doing?
    – random
    Jan 22, 2010 at 9:14
  • 5
    that's so Opera! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That%27s_So_Raven Jan 22, 2010 at 9:20
  • it looks like opera's "Turbo Mode" proxies are intentionally retrieving pages uncompressed Oh dear. Jan 22, 2010 at 17:21
  • Opera, my dear, I do say... fail.
    – snicker
    Jan 22, 2010 at 18:02
  • 2
    I just did a quick test with Opera Mini 4.2, 5.0, and Opera 10.50 with Turbo. Both of the Mini browsers requested compression while the desktop did not. Maybe Mini could be unblocked?
    – Josh Lee
    Mar 12, 2010 at 21:54
  • 1
    A bit old for a bump, but Opera seems to have gotten their act together. Viewing SE sites with no major problems on Opera 36.0.2130.29.
    – unbindall
    Mar 15, 2016 at 1:54

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