[setup.exe] HTTP v1.1 and persistent connections

[Pavel Tsekov <ptsekov at syntrex dot com>]

Hi, there! :)

I've been testing the new SimpleSocket with a simple 
program I've written - it issues commands to
FTP/HTTP servers (also proxies) and reads their
response. While testing I've encountered a strange
slowdown when using HTTP protocol version 1.1 (setup.exe
uses HTTP v.1.1 in it's NetIO_HTTP class. It turned
out that if I force the use of HTTP v.1.0 or turn off
the persistent connection feature the slowdown is gone.
As about the slowdown - I've noticed that the
client reads about 8k of data and then stalls for a 
while and after that it reads the rest of the data.

I've read some documents and uderstand that HTTP 1.1
introduced the persistent connection as a default
if no otherwise specified.

Based on this I'd like to know if anyone knows about
this slowdown and possible workarounds. If not I'd
suggest to send additional request header on HTTP
connection which disables the keep-alive feature
(Connection: close).
Have in mind that for each package to be downloaded a
new connection is made, so the keep-alive feature does
not make too much sense, but the slowdown I'm talking
about is significant. I hope this will decrease the
overall processing time.

Thanks! :)