Squid is a full-featured web proxy cache server application which provides proxy and cache services for HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and other popular network protocols. It can implement caching and proxying of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) requests and caching of Domain Name Server (DNS) lookups, and perform transparent caching.

Squid also supports a wide variety of caching protocols, such as Internet Cache Protocol (ICP), the HyperText Caching Protocol (HTCP), the Cache Array Routing Protocol (CARP), and the Web Cache Coordination Protocol (WCCP).

Caching and performance optimization usually requires a lot of work on the developer's part, but Squid does all that for you. It has different configuration options, transparent and accelerated modes that enable you to focus on particular areas of your network.

By deploying Squid in accelerator mode, requests are handled faster than on normal web servers making your site perform quicker than everyone else's!