AvantGo Temporarily Blocked

[Jason Dunn]

If you're using AvantGo and wondering why it's not working today, it's because we've IP-blocked AvantGo servers from accessing this site. We're constantly looking for ways to lower the server load and make it faster for everyone, and in our investigations we saw that AvantGo was hitting our server fairly heavily, fairly often. So as an experiment we've blocked then today and are watching the impact on our server - so far it seems to be making a significant difference, but we'll need to analyze the data before making any decisions. What we're looking at doing for those of you using AvantGo is creating a time-generated static page with no sub-links - a page that AvantGo would hit and pull down, but wouldn't be able to spider any deeper than that opening page. Unfortunately with the way AvantGo is designed, it's too easy for someone to create a custom channel with a depth of three, and before we know it AvantGo is trying to slurp down 100's of pages. Stay tuned, we're working on a solution now.

[Jason Dunn]

If you're using AvantGo and wondering why it's not working today, it's because we've IP-blocked AvantGo servers from accessing this site. We're constantly looking for ways to lower the server load and make it faster for everyone, and in our investigations we saw that AvantGo was hitting our server fairly heavily, fairly often. So as an experiment we've blocked then today and are watching the impact on our server - so far it seems to be making a significant difference, but we'll need to analyze the data before making any decisions. What we're looking at doing for those of you using AvantGo is creating a time-generated static page with no sub-links - a page that AvantGo would hit and pull down, but wouldn't be able to spider any deeper than that opening page. Unfortunately with the way AvantGo is designed, it's too easy for someone to create a custom channel with a depth of three, and before we know it AvantGo is trying to slurp down 100's of pages. Stay tuned, we're working on a solution now.

[MS Mobiles]

Wow! What a bold move! I must think of something similar - despite having full avantgo channel many people are creating custom channels and sucking things not designed to be sucked by mobile devices (like main page, etc) - while /avantgo part is especially designed to be used in mobile devices and is pre-rendered to static HTML files.

So my advice to you is: block avantgo everywhere except for /avantgo folder where you can have files pre-rendered (thus no connection to DB required and minimal load of the server).

Generally I think that some people like AvantGo and one should not block them completely - there is always some solution to the overload problem (like above or some others).

[Jon Westfall]

It's mainly load from the custom channels that has been a problem. As Jason said, we're still evaluating the impact to the server from the high frequency of Avantgo pulls. In the end, our ultimate goal is to not block Avantgo completly, but to avoid Avantgo from Avantstopping our server.

[acollet]

AvantGo is SO Palm days. RSS or BUST for me

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by acollet

AvantGo is SO Palm days. RSS or BUST for me

Yeah, that's what I think too. When I reinstalled my e805 with WM2003SE I tried AvantGo. That experiment lasted a whole 2 days. :P

--janak

[lapchinj]

Originally Posted by acollet

AvantGo is SO Palm days. RSS or BUST for me

Yeah! I'll second that emotion . You got my vote in spades!

Jeff-

[MitchellO]

I use avantgo (the v3.3 integrated client, v5 sucks) and do get the Pocket PC Thoughts site, but only the front page of the mobile site. It syncs quick, takes little space, and if I want to read below the front page (which I only occasionally do) I either use GPRS and get there, or wait to get back to my laptop.

On my Avantgo I have CNET, PalmInfoCenter, PPC Thoughts (top page), Gadgeteer Mobile (top page), PC World, Sydney Morning Herald.

[Golfer]

It would be a shame to lose Pocket PCThoughts (and the ability to drill down a couple of levels) on avantgo. I agree that RSS is a way forward, however I like to downlaod channels through Avantgo first thing in the morning to read offline on the train on the way into work. Pocket PCThoughts is the 1st channel I look at, and it's good to be able to drill down one level to read the comments on an article.

[PromoGuy]

If Advantgo would support RSS then we'd all be happy!

RSS readers are better, but Avantgo is free. But sites blocking Avantgo would be a good motivation to invest in a good reader.

[Jason Lee]

Originally Posted by PromoGuy

If Advantgo would support RSS then we'd all be happy!

RSS readers are better, but Avantgo is free. But sites blocking Avantgo would be a good motivation to invest in a good reader.

RSS is free too.

http://pda.jasnapaka.com/prssr/

I've used this one since v1.0. Very nice and simple. I like it so much I quit using the RSS reader i payed for. It is so much smaller and easier than PocketRSS.