Use the “Caching and Fetching Tab” to change your cache or to modify the number of connections available to you. The tab has two slider controls: one for setting your maximum cache size, and the other for the maximum number of connections. These can be controlled by either clicking the slider and dragging your mouse left or right, or clicking the slider and using the left or right arrow buttons (see Figure 2-1).
The cache is a storage buffer that allows quick access to your recently visited web sites. The cache directory holds information concerning these sites for as long as the directory size—which you designate—will allow. A larger cache directory holds more information for longer, but could cause performance issues for your Silicon Graphics web browser. A reduction in cache size will take effect only when the cache next tries to add new information.
The cache directory is located at $HOME/.web. You can move it anywhere you wish, provided you maintain your write permission to it, and move all related files with it.
You can view the contents of the cache directory by dragging the folder icon in the Cache Location box to your desktop (see Figure 2-1). By opening this directory folder, you can view any web site listed, providing you have the correct HTML previewing application (such as Cosmo Create). However, it may not look the same as the way you viewed it with your Silicon Graphics web browser.
Each time you visit a web site, one or more connections are made between your system and the site. There are a variety of protocols that may be used to make this connection. The most commonly used services are HTTP, FTP, and HTTPS. Each of these services are differentiated by their port number.
You can have up to 16 simultaneous web connections for each application you are using. Having a large number of connections can result in faster loading time for a larger server, but may slow down a smaller server as it is unable to hold all the connection requests in its buffers. The default is four connections, and this should be sufficient.
Whenever you activate your Silicon Graphics web browser, the connection settings on the “Caching and Fetching Tab” define how the network connection will be made—either directly, through a proxy, or using a socks server.