| | | Checking -fragments |
Some URLs contain a # sign followed by a pointer to a specific spot in the document, like this:
http://www.someone.com/help.html#me
#me, is called a fragment. (Many people call it an anchor.) It is a
reference to a specific place within the document http://www.someone.com/help.html. This fragment should be
defined, to indicate which place is meant by this name. Fragments are usually defined using the <A>
tag, like this:
<A NAME="me">some text</A>
ID attribute to any HTML tag.
Naturally, part of Big Brother's job is to make sure that fragments are correctly defined. However, this can use
a lot of network bandwidth. Imagine what happens when Big Brother checks the above URL. First, it asks the server
www.someone.com whether the document help.html exists. This is usually very fast, because the server
simply answers "yes, it does" without actually transmitting it. However, if Big Brother wishes to make sure that
#me is defined, then it has to download the whole document and look for the definition in it.
One should point out that Big Brother handles the problem in the smartest possible way. That is, it will never
download a document twice, even in the most complex situations. Nevertheless, checking fragments could mean
downloading a lot more data. (Have a look at the statistics displayed at the end of each report to see exactly how
much more.) Because of this, checking fragments is an option. It is off by default; in that case, Big Brother will
simply ignore anything that comes after the # sign. To turn it on, add
-fragments
| | | Checking -fragments |