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We have a satellite uplink connected to a PFsense router. Our connection has a latency of +- 750ms.

Would it make sense to configure squid to cache much data to improve loading times of websites? I heard some satellite providers are already applying some sort of cache mechanism. Our connection is operated by Tooway / Skydsl

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Jortie
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    Only if you can do ssl bump and cache HTTPS as well, since that will likely be the majority of your traffic. – Michael Hampton Nov 24 '15 at 23:10
  • If I read correctly, Squid can only cache HTTPS using a MITM method, which will display certificate errors on browsers. Is that correct? – Jortie Nov 24 '15 at 23:40
  • Right, you would have to install a certificate on each client device. This _should_ be somewhere between easy and trivial, unless you're doing BYOD (and in your case, I wouldn't). – Michael Hampton Nov 24 '15 at 23:51
  • I`m setting this up for a small bed & breakfast, so everyone is bringing their own device. I think I have to give up on this one. – Jortie Nov 24 '15 at 23:53

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We also have Tooway (our provider is SkyDSL). At SkyDSL (and especially our product) there is a traffic-shaping machanism implemented that drops bandwith after a few MB to 200kb/sek. (Technically the traffic is counted by destination IP and there is a Burst for the first 20 MB) Making multiple TCP-connections do not circumvent this mechanism.

So my Answer will be: YES - use a Proxy.

The worst case is a Service on your pfsense box that does not gain speed. At best case you can save much bandwidth on static content. Websites you (and your guests) visit often will gain a performance boost since cached content is served with very low (lan) latency.

Our Byte-hit rate is between 7 and 30%. The average speed increase (HIT [kB/sec] / DIRECT [kB/sec]) is between 4 and 27 percent. 12% for the last month.

Martin Seitl
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