This is a must-try utility from Google: the Google Web Accelerator. So far, I believe it is making a difference for me. I’ve been waiting for a useful web accelerator for years, and it’s really exciting that Google would weigh in with an offering here.
I’m sure you’re wondering how it works. This is from the FAQ:
Google Web Accelerator uses various strategies to make your web pages load faster, including: * Sending your page requests through Google machines dedicated to handling Google Web Accelerator traffic. * Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible. * Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it. * Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance. * Managing your Internet connection to reduce delays. * Compressing data before sending it to your computer.
The coolest part is that this is web acceleration intended for broadband users:
Dial-up users may not see much improvement, as Google Web Accelerator is currently optimized to speed up web page loading for broadband connections.
Note that there are some privacy issues with letting Google cache all of the web content that you are viewing, but you can tell it not to cache certain domains explicitly. I think the potential gain here far outweighs the privacy concerns, at least for me.
Give it a try, and let me know what you think!
by Steve
07 May 2005 at 17:20
It’s getting a lot of bad press from the public and webmasters alike though. http://news.com.com/Google+speed+bump+draws+scorn/2100-1032_3-5698447.html?tag=nefd.top
by Jason
07 May 2005 at 17:28
IMHO webmasters as a grossly over-generalized population need to take a massive chill-pill. If you put your stuff on the internet, or worse expect to make your living there, you need to realize that you don’t get to control how people consume content from the web. Content producers don’t control the desktop. Do a Google search for Greasemonkey (http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/) and read what people are saying about that.
by Chris
07 May 2005 at 20:58
Wow, that has serious privacy implications. Think LiveJournal-like sites, for one… or, for that matter, our customer-only discussion forum (which potentially contains confidential information about our clients and/or our software).
This isn’t just another case of control-happy webmasters… this is a serious privacy concern!
by Jason
08 May 2005 at 00:33
User beware; putting content onto the web is in effect releasing it from your control. Just as email is not secure (without encryption, I suppose), web content is not either. The easy solution to ensuring that your content remains within your control is not to put it out there.
by Chris
08 May 2005 at 21:59
That’s a cop-out. The web is a valuable tool for many things, not all of which are public. (Evidence: your insurance company, your phone company, and your government all use the web to provide their partners with confidential information about their services–and you–via secured web interfaces.) The security of these systems is not in question — the practice of taking that secured content and posting it in a public database (a la Google) is.
Using HTML to represent content and HTTP to transfer it does not imply any sort of license or relinquishing of control. Frankly, I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that placing things on the Web implies some sort of tacit agreement. I didn’t agree with you on RSS, and I certainly won’t agree with you when you take syndication out of the picture.
by Jason
08 May 2005 at 23:45
Fair enough. I must admit that I’m hypocritical in that I do my banking online, so I therefore trust the medium to some extent. Your points are well taken. I think to understand where I’m coming from it’s best to consider my position as one of advising caution – if you’re afraid of your content getting stolen online, you should be, because if it’s worth anything, someone will try to steal it. And technologies will constantly be popping up that may have flaws that expose otherwise private information. It’s not that I’m condoning it, so much as I’m saying we’ll never be able to prevent it, so act accordingly.
by Steve
12 May 2005 at 19:22
“so act accordingly.”…exactly, and acting accordingly mean speaking out when someone tries to circumvent your rights. You can’t just say well that’s he internet, its very well may be the internet but it shouldn’t have to be.
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16 May 2005 at 13:30
[...] high-tech. He touches on Yahoo and Apple, as well as mentioning the true importance of the Google Web Accelerator. Great reading. Posted [...]