Features - Performance

Features providing performance enhancements

HTTP caching

HTTP cache panelThe WWW Proxy in WinGate creates the opportunity for networks to gain greater efficiency and performance of web browsing.

In general the term caching relates to the act of storing the results of previous operations in the hope that future operations will be able to be satisfied by looking up the stored result, rather than having to fetch the result again.

Especially on large networks, where many users look at the same web pages, reductions in Internet traffic and improvements in speed can result by storing web pages returned as a result of one user's browsing, and returning that stored copy when another user requests the same page.

WinGate has sophisticated rules which allow the system administrator to specify what sorts of requests will be cached, and how the cache will be maintained (since you can't let a cache grow forever or you will run out of disk space).

DNS clientDNS caching

WinGate includes a custom DNS resolver, which is used by WinGate services to resolve DNS queries. This DNS resolver was written so that WinGate could gain access to all the information returned by DNS servers to DNS requests. This information contains data relating to how long DNS records may be stored before they become stale. This allows WinGate to provide an effective and correct DNS cache.

DNS caching can greatly speed up the user experience of things such as web browsing. By storing (caching) the results of previous DNS lookups, keeping track of the freshness of the information, and returning cached information to clients on subsequent requests, DNS traffic can also be greatly reduced.

Multiple simultaneous internet connections


Gateway usagefor instance you could:

  • Specify that the WWW Proxy uses all your available internet connections



Bandwidth Control: RestrictionsBandwidth management / throttling

WinGate allows you to control the way your available bandwidth is able to be used. Certain application such as streaming media players, internet radios, and others can soak up a lot of your available bandwidth, making core services such as email or web browsing suffer a performance degradation. Furthermore, restricting bandwidth available to certain applications is an effective method of discouraging people from using certain applications (such as file-sharing or peer to peer programs) without having to completely ban them (which people can often circumvent anyway).

With WinGate's bandwidth control functions, you can control bandwidth on a number of criteria:

  • Per client IP address, or range thereof
  • per source or destination port
  • Per time of day (so you can apply different restrictions at different times)

Bandwidth Control: SchedulingAdditionally, you can specify restrictions in terms of absolute bandwidth, or as a proportion of available bandwidth.

The final control you have is scheduling priority. You can make certain services respond more quickly than others by giving a higher priority to the forwarding of packets related to that service