Google is now offering to "accelerate" the web through their free Web
Accelerator browser plug-in. How does it work? From the Google Web Accelerator 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.
Sounds both very cool and a little scary at the same time. The idea that a significant
percentage of Internet traffic could one day go through one company’s proxies is
a little mind boggling. I haven’t decided yet whether I want to participate in
the beta. Anyone out there give this a try yet?
Comments
This technology has been around for a number of years now, with one ISP in the UK using it as it’s cole gimmick (and winning a number of awards aat the same time: http://www.onspeed.com).What should be said about the Google beta is that it’s not aimed at dial-up users, but rather 1Mbps minimum users. It actually slows down usage if you are on dial-up.
Yep, I’ve seen these accelerators around before, and have to admit my gut reaction is the same as yours, Christian.Relying on a company whose core asset is data warehousing of internet resources and usage to proxy all my web requests just seems a wee bit too prone to corporate misuse for me to feel comfortable using it. An ISP I can understand (and expect) – but what internal benefit could Google be gaining from this service if not real-time web usage metrics that extend light-years beyond what their spiders are currently pulling in?I’ll be watching from the sidelines as well… seems interesting, but questionable.