Abstract: A system for determining whether an entity that issued a message is pre-configured to receive a response according to an enhanced communications protocol is implemented in a method which includes the steps of receiving a message and parsing the message to selectively classify the entity as an enhanced entity if the message conforms to the enhanced communications protocol.

Abstract: A system for collecting and displaying performance improvement information for a computer is implemented in a method for providing performance improvement information to a client device. The method includes the steps of receiving a request from the client device for network content, retrieving the requested network content, and transmitting the network content to the client computer with information relating to a performance improvement associated with the retrieval and/or transmission of the network content.

Abstract: A system for enhancing data access over a communications link is disclosed. In accordance with a particular embodiment, a system for retrieving an object over a computer network includes a network client with a browser for rendering an object to a user and a user interface enabling the user to establish an encoding preference. A remote scaling server is coupled between the network client and the computer network, and includes a remote proxy and an encode service provider. The remote scaling server is configured to request a user-specified encoding preference from the network client, retrieve an object from the computer network using the remote proxy, encode the object using the encode service provider in accordance with the requested user-specified encoding preference, and transmit the encoded object to the network client using the remote proxy. The disclosed system thus enables users to dynamically influence the trade-off between quality of content and download speed.

Abstract: A system for preventing multiple instances of a dynamic executable module from being loaded on a device is implemented by a method including the steps of maintaining state information for the device; and providing a dynamic executable module to the device if the state information indicates that no other instance of the dynamic executable module is already loaded on the device.

Abstract: A system for virus checking a data object to be downloaded to a client device is implemented in a method including the steps of retrieving a data object to be downloaded, scanning the data object for a computer virus, and downloading the data object to the client device if no computer virus is detected.