Selective Java applet filtering on Internet

Proposes a proxy-based solution to selectively filter out Java applets from retrieved Web pages. Selective Java applet filtering is desired mainly for two reasons: (i) for low bandwidth users, background audio, animation and 3D Java applets for Web page decoration usually result in very long Web access delays; and (ii) for personal privacy reason, Web surfers would like to filter Java applets that are used for server monitoring and tracking. By sampling and analyzing the usage patterns of these applets in current Web page design, a set of good heuristic rules for their identification can be obtained. Based on these heuristics, selective filtering of unwanted applets can be done through the proxy server automatically. To handle the situation when a wrong filtering decision is made, a simple and effective recovery mechanism is supported in the proxy server. The Web surfer just needs to click the browser's "reload" button. If the difference between the time of receiving the reload signal and the previous access time of a "filtered" Web page is within some threshold value, the proxy loads back the filtered applet(s) to the Web surfer. A sample implementation of this filtering proxy solution based on the SQUID proxy server is also described in order to help understand the system design and tradeoff issues. Such system is important because it gives Web surfers an easy way to enjoy Java technology and to protect their privacy and bandwidth usage at the same time.