Redirect on dial-up

[Jim Weinberg]

Is there a way to detect if a user is connecting by dial-up and then redirecting them to a less busy page?

Thanks.

[Twey]

No. Your page shouldn't be so busy to start with.

[djr33]

Well, you could test how long it takes to get an image, but that's not reliable. By the time you downloaded a large enough file for a dialup user, it would just be a waste.

[jscheuer1]

99.99% reliable detection and redirection of dial up users:

<div>Please Choose Your Type of Connection<br>
<a href="busy.htm">BroadBand</a><br>
<a href="not_busy.htm">DialUp</a></div>

I'm serious, works nearly all the time. There are also schemes where the page can send various test images and measure the amount of time required for the browser to report boolean complete status for the test images, but doing so puts you at the mercy of a number of things that could result in erroneous results. Things like momentary fluctuations in network connectivity and browsers that see boolean complete status differently than expected, or not at all. Users with images and/or javascript disabled . . . Those are just the ones I can think of off of the top of my alleged head.

[Jim Weinberg]

John.

Thank you so much for your reply. What I'd really like to do, though, is to determine if they're using Dial-up and redirect them with out their having to do the selection. I'm using flash on my page and it really bogs down a dial-up connection. If I could tell (onload, perhaps) that they have a slow line I could redirect them to a non-flash page. I was hoping that I could tell using javascript.

Any suggestions?

Daniel. I read John's reply first, but I wanted to thank you also.

Jim

[Twey]

The simple answer is, don't use Flash. That's one of the (many) disadvantages of using plugin content on your page, and you really do just have to live with it or do it the old-fashioned way with a bit of HTML and JS.

[djr33]

Well, at least with Flash you have a bit more control. If it takes too long to load, then just cut out and load the simple html version.
ALWAYS with a flash site (and as Twey says they are usually a bad idea in general), have a "bail out" link for a html backup.
I probably would just use the html version of the site anyway, because Flash annoys me.

[jscheuer1]

If you must go to this extent, go high end:

http://www.cyscape.com/

so that you might have a decent chance of it working out well. However, although I am not opposed to Flash, I would prefer to use it only to display a video or other Flash content on demand, something like:

<input type="button" onclick="showVid();" value="View Video">

Not anything that is essential to the site though, something like a video of last year's event, or a demo of the product, that sort of thing.

Yet another way of looking at it (which I'm sure was mentioned), if your site is targeted at high end users, just go Flash and let the chips fall where they may.

[Twey]

If you must go to this extent, go high end:

http://www.cyscape.com/

so that you might have a decent chance of it working out well.

Given how their site breaks in Konqueror, I wouldn't place any bets.

Yet another way of looking at it (which I'm sure was mentioned), if your site is targeted at high end users, just go Flash and let the chips fall where they may.

Risky. My machine is fairly high-end, but doesn't run the official Flash plugin because it's 64-bit. Other users may encounter the same issues, especially if they're performance freaks.

[jscheuer1]

If you are selling high end cars, furs, jewelry, that sort of thing, it isn't really that big of risk.

Not too many people in the market for those sorts of things would have a unique enough setup, one comparable enough to yours to present those sorts of problems, to worry about. Even if they did, they'd just hire someone to surf for them.