Patent ID: 7860997

Claim:
A flow control apparatus, comprising: an agent associated with a browser and host platform; a gateway in communication with a source Web server; a long latency link between said agent and said gateway; an independent flow control mechanism for downloading Web page objects in parallel from said source Web server to said browser via said long latency link; and a cache associated with said host platform into which Web page objects are selectively downloaded in parallel as soon as said agent is aware of them, independently of an implementation of said browser and said source Web server; wherein selected embedded Web page objects are made locally available to said browser at said cache by said agent; and wherein said browser does not need to wait for a request and a corresponding response to traverse said long latency link before a Web object is available, said independent flow control mechanism further comprising a pre-fetcher for selectively pre-fetching certain objects; and said independent flow control mechanism operating concurrently with said browser to fetch said objects from said source Web server while said browser is still loading a page; wherein said objects are stored at said cache.