The basic architecture is Real Simple(tm). It works entirely within existing technologies ("vanilla" web browsers and servers, http and https on the wire, plus a small cgi).

To use FreeCache, just click on a link like this. As a user you DO NOT need to install new software.

FreeCache works by moving content "hot spots" on the web closer to users. This provides several advantages to various parties involved: Users get faster downloads, content providers pay less for Internet-bound traffic, and ISPs pay less for Internet-originating traffic.

An example:
Say an up-and-coming rock band, the RockLobsters, has a website that has a large file, say http://www.rocklobsters.com/videos/my-new-rock-video.mpg that is 5MB-1GB in size. If it gets popular, they will lose their guitars and homes to their ISP because their bandwidth bill will shoot up.

While keeping their big file on their webhost, the RockLobsters change the URL on their webpage to point to: http://freecache.org/http://www.rocklobsters.com/videos/my-new-rock-video.mpg

When a user clicks on this,

• the user downloads the file from a nearby machine on their ISP's network, and
• the user is happy because it was fast.
• The RockLobsters are happy because they distributed their file to another user but did not have to send the file from their ISP.
• The RockLobsters' website's weblog registers that a download happened so they can ratchet up their expectation of breaking into the big leagues.
• The user's ISP is happy because they only downloaded it to their network once and served it to many users thereby saving on their Internet connectivity bill.

Please note that you cannot submit a whole site to FreeCache as in http://freecache.org/http://www.rocklobsters.com/ This will not work as only index.html will be cached. You have to prefix every item that you want to have cached seperately.

While FreeCache doesn't solve all bandwidth limitations, we hope it will alleviate a great deal of them.