CoNetrix

Blog: HTTP

When trying to use open WiFi such as in a hotel or airplane and you have to go through an authorization page, you can have trouble getting started if your default page is something like https://google.com that is using HSTS headers and doesn't offer an HTTP option. Many times, the intermediate authorization page doesn't show up because the browser won't redirect from your HTTPS home page.
 
If this causes problems, you can always try to go first to http://neverssl.com which is HTTP only and will usually allow the intermediate authorization page to come up and get you started. Then, once online, you can proceed to setup a VPN connection, etc.
WiFi, HTTP,
 

The HTTP standard (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt) specifies an Accept-Encoding field in the header that allows the browser to specify, among other things, what kind of compression the server can use to compress pages sent back.  Our ISA server seemed to never set this field even if the user's browser did.  In the ISA filters, there is a compression filter that must be enabled before it will accept compressed pages.  If this filter is disabled, then the browser will just get an error from the ISA server instead of displaying the page.  Audible.com is an example site that wants to send its data in gzip format and this site will not be accessible if the compression filter is disabled.

Networking, ISA, HTTP,