Globe Wireless Compresses Web Images
I was alarmed yesterday when I opened this blog and found out that all of my images are not loading correctly. I tried opening my blog from Apple Safari, MS IE and Google Chrome and found out that only Safari loads the site correctly. It might not be a coding problem since I was able to load my site correctly from my office computer.
The first thing I did is to check the HTML source from Firefox and Safari. My Firefox browser’s source code viewer shows several suspicious image src values (as seen in the picture below) while Safari’s source code output shows the correct output.
The original root URL of my images should be http://www.techykid.com/and the unknown http://62.0.5.134/. I was alarmed. The first reason that I was able to think of is that my site was hacked. So I immediately googled for some answers. After browsing a few forums from the Philippines, I learned that my site was not hacked. Instead, I’m a victim of Globe’s scheme in making the web faster (for their users).
How’s that?
I’ve been using my Globe wireless broadband (HSDPA/UMTS) as my secondary connection in cases when PLDT fails me. Well one of those instances was last night. As part of their scheme in making the web faster (for their users), they compress all images that the user loads. They tried reducing the amount of bits and bytes needed to be downloaded, thus making the web sites your viewing load faster. The effect of having your images compressed before reaching your computer is it makes downloading images faster at a lower quality, worst, it won’t open at all.
A lot of users from the Philippine Mac Users Group are already complaining on how globe compresses their downloaded images when they use their Globe Visibility. Most of them are not happy about this.
In my opinion, after launching iPhone in the Philippines, there has been an increase in the user’s HSDPA and UMTS usage rate which resulted to the decrease in the available resources for other users. Thus, decreasing our connection speed and available bandwidth. This action taken by globe, by compressing images before it reaches your computer, is one of their methods to hide the shameful fact that their system can’t accomodate the consumer’s demands. I hope Globe can fix this problem.
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Ohh.. that’s bad…
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Yeah..tha’s right dude. Shameful as it is, Globe is cheating us! Surfing the web is like using dial-up. Direct (http) downloading sucks. It keeps getting cut off.
If there is a better ISP, I will gladly switch but Smart’s services also sucks. They all sucks!
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If i’m not wrong, try to change the dns ip add to open dsn (opendns.com). I notice that after changing the dns ip, the images is not compressed. I hope this will help to the problem.
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Winston Reply:
December 18th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
oh. i haven’t tried that one.
thanks for the tip. but since i discovered this trick from globe, I stopped using their service.
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I am also experiencing this anomaly. It really thus gives me a headache. At first, I have no idea about Globe’s “Tricking” Strategy so I suspect that my computer had a virus or something. After doing a full scan and tweaking on the settings of my pc, I surrendered and decided to format it. After installing all the drivers, the first thing I did was connect to the internet using Globe’s connection. To my dismay, the problem still exist. It was only when I googled it and found out that a lot of people are also experiencing it.
So to Globe, here’s what you deserve: YOU SUCK BIGTIME!!!
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I did experienced the same but instead of posting my sentiments, I searched for solution. I read a thread at tipidpc where they talked about the Roughclaw reflector. I tried and it works. You can check at tipidpc threads or you can check at Roughclaw site http://www.roughclaw.com.
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