Granted Patent B2

US 12,284,069 · App. 18/409,847 · Granted Apr 22, 2025

Inventors: Derry Shribman (Tel Aviv, IL); Ofer Vilenski (Moshav Hadar Am, IL)

Assignee: BRIGHT DATA LTD.

H04L41/046H04L67/01H04L67/1001H04L67/1023H04L67/1063H04L67/108H04L67/142H04L67/535H04L67/563H04L67/564H04L67/02

Abstract

Claims (35)

1. A method for use with a group of communication devices, each of the communication devices is identified in the Internet using a respective Internet Protocol (IP) address, the method comprising:

periodically receiving, by a first server from each of the communication devices in the group over the Internet, a respective message associated with an availability status of the respective communication device;

storing, at the first server, the respective received availability status and the respective IP address of each of the communication devices in the group, in response to the receiving of the respective message;

receiving, by the first server over the Internet, a request for content that comprises audio or video content;

selecting, by the first server, a communication device from the group based on the associated stored availability status;

sending, by the first server to the selected communication device over the Internet, the request; and

receiving, by the first server from the selected communication device over the Internet, the requested content, in response to the sent request.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising sending, by a client device to the first server over the Internet, the request, wherein the receiving by the first server of the request comprises receiving the request from a client device.

3. The method according to claim 2 , further comprising executing, by the client device, a web browser application.

4. The method according to claim 3 , further comprising sending, by the first server to the client device over the Internet, the received content.

5. The method according to claim 4 , further comprising receiving, by the client device from the first server, the received content.

6. The method according to claim 5 , further comprising storing, by the client device in response to the receiving from the first server, the received web-page, so that the client device is configured to provide the received web-page without accessing the web server.

7. The method according to claim 3 , further comprising identifying, by the web browser, a HTTP request, and wherein the sending of the request to the first server is in response to the identifying.

8. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising receiving, by the selected communication device from the first server, the request sent by the first server.

9. The method according to claim 8 , for use with a web server that stores the content, wherein the content comprises a web-page that is identified in the Internet by a URL, the method further comprising sending, by the selected communication device to the web server over an Internet, a HTTP request that comprises the URL, in response to the receiving of the request from the first server.

10. The method according to claim 9 , further comprising receiving, by the selected communication device from the web server over the Internet, in response to the sending of the HTTP request to the web server, the web-page.

11. The method according to claim 10 , further comprising sending, by the selected communication device to the first server over the Internet, the received web-page.

12. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising sending, by each of the communication devices in the group during, as part of, or in response to, a respective start-up or respective power-up of the communication device, a second message to the first server, and wherein the second message comprises an IP address, a MAC address, or a hostname, of the respective communication device.

13. The method according to claim 12 , for use with a second application that is a version of the first application that is associated with a second version number and is stored in the first server, wherein the method further comprising receiving, by the one of the communication devices, in response to the second message, a third message that comprises the second version number.

14. The method according to claim 13 , wherein the method further comprising downloading, by the one of the communication devices, in response to the third message, the second application, and installing the second application at the one of the communication devices as a replacement for the first application.

15. The method according to claim 12 , for use with a first application that is associated with a first version number and that is stored in one of the communication devices in the group, wherein the second message comprises the first version number.

16. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the content is identified by a content identifier, and wherein the request comprises the content identifier.

17. The method according to claim 16 , wherein the content is a web page that is stored in a web server, wherein the content identifier comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), and wherein the request comprises a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request.

18. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising determining that the received content is valid.

19. The method according to claim 18 , wherein the determining is based on checking a received HTTP header according to, or based on, IETF RFC 2616.

20. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising executing, by each of the communication devices in the group, a respective client operating system.

21. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising periodically sending, by each of the communication devices in the group, the respective message associated with the availability status of the respective communication device.

22. The method according to claim 1 , wherein each of the message comprises a respective ‘keeping alive’ message.

23. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising executing, by at least one of the communication devices in the group, a web browser application.

24. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the first server is a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) server that communicates over the Internet based on, or according to, using TCP/IP protocol or connection, and wherein each of the communication devices in the group is a respective Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) client that respectively communicates with the first server over the Internet based on, or according to, TCP/IP protocol.

25. The method according to claim 1 , wherein each of the communication devices in the group is identified by a respective Media Access Control (MAC) address or a respective hostname.

26. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising executing, by at least one of the communication devices in the group, an email application.

27. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the steps are sequentially executed.

28. The method according to claim 1 , wherein at least one of the communication devices in the group comprises a wireless modem for Radio-Frequency (RF) communication, and wherein the sending and the receiving is using the RF communication.

29. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing computer instructions that, when executed by a computer processor, cause the processor to perform the method according to claim 1 .

Assignments (2)

Continuity (11)

References Cited (400)