Polipo
Polipo is a small and fast caching web proxy. It is designed to be used by one person or a small group of people. It caches websites, images, videos and other content to improve browsing speed and save bandwidth.
caching
web-proxy
bandwidth-saving
Polipo: Fast Caching Web Proxy for Personal Use
Small and fast caching web proxy designed for individual or small group use, caching websites, images, videos, and more to improve browsing speed and reduce bandwidth usage.
What is Polipo?
Polipo is a lightweight caching web proxy software application. It was designed to be fast, small, and suitable for use by one person or a small group of people.
Some key features of Polipo include:
- HTTP caching proxy - it can cache web pages, images, videos, CSS, JavaScript and other content to improve page load speeds.
- Disk cache - stores the cached content on disk rather than in memory, allowing the cache to persist across sessions.
- Bandwidth savings - by serving cached content instead of fetching it from the internet every time, Polipo can reduce bandwidth usage significantly.
- Runs on Linux and Unix-like systems - Polipo is open source software and runs on most Linux distributions as well as macOS, FreeBSD, and more.
- Lightweight - Polipo uses very little memory and CPU, making it well-suited for low-end hardware or shared hosting environments.
- Supports SOCKS proxy chaining - can be combined with TOR or other proxies for added privacy and anonymity.
Some use cases for Polipo include personal web caching to speed up browsing, reducing bandwidth costs for small office/home office networks, or adding caching to IoT devices and embedded systems. While more limited in features than enterprise solutions like Squid, its simplicity and small footprint make Polipo ideal for personal or small-scale uses.
Polipo Features
Features
- HTTP proxy
- Caching web proxy
- Supports HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1
- Disk and memory caching
- Efficient cache storage
- Configuration via text file
- Supports SOCKS proxy chaining
Pricing
- Open Source
Pros
Fast and lightweight
Improves browsing speed
Saves bandwidth
Easy to setup and configure
Actively maintained
Runs on multiple platforms
Cons
No web-based interface
Limited configuration options
Not designed for large groups
No access control or authentication
The Best Polipo Alternatives
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