Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
System Requirements
Operating System: Win XP or Win 2000 SP3+
Browser: IE 5.5+ or Firefox 1.0+
Availability: For users in North America and Europe (during beta testing phase)
Press Release:
Google Web
Accelerator significantly reduces the time that it takes broadband users to
download and view web pages. The Google Web Accelerator appears as a small
speedometer in the browser chrome with a cumulative "Time saved" indicator.Here's how it works. A user downloads and installs the client and begins
browsing the web as she normally would. In the background, the Google Web
Accelerator employs a number of techniques to speed up the delivery of
content to users.
Looks like some of the Mozilla hires are paying dvidends.
If they were truly a "do no evil" company they would develop an easy way to opt-out instead of ramming it down everyone's throat.
1. It's 2 days old. Give them a little time.
2. You seem to have a really low threshold for what you consider "evil". This may be a little thick headed, but it sure as hell ain't evil.
3. There is an easy way to opt-out. It was what you replied to.
1. It's 2 days old. Give them a little time.2. You seem to have a really low threshold for what you consider "evil". This may be a little thick headed, but it sure as hell ain't evil.
Also, by #2, you seem to assume that their reasoning is as they state. That reason absolutely does not hold water. They're using it to ultimately make more money, at the expense of webmasters who did absolutely nothing wrong. That's not "evil?"
Well, okay, not evil in the kidnapping a child sense, but certainly not in the spirit of their "do no evil" marketing campaign.
Again, if this was M$, or Gator, everyone would freak. But, it's Google, and they have colorful balls all over their office, so it's okay. Besides, we've worried about security & privacy before, and gotten over it, why all the fuss now?
Not only can you 'opt-out' of anyone using the whole WA on your site, you can also 'opt-out' of just the pre-fetch portion of the WA, so people can still browse you site...
Don't get it.
To see 'opt-out' for pre-fetching, check page 22, to see complete 'opt-out' see this page and page 21.
Justin
"My 70 year old mom would be "befuddled" by your error message.
The call would go "what's proxies? do I need to install something?"
I asked you back in post number 224:
Q/Okay Bill, please post the relevant compact htaccess code to redirect safely, together with your sample 'Google WA tutorial for the duped', and we will use it, until Google give us back our liberty./Q
You might care to verify and add the 64.233.173.66 IP being reported by Graywolf in this thread as also being used by G WA.
The more people who block it and educate their visitors why they can't use it on our sites, the sooner G will repent.
Since GG is paying attention, I think those who have chosen to block G WA should say so here in public.
Bill... your code and text improvements please...
3. There is an easy way to opt-out. It was what you replied to.
For a company the size of Google not to have learned that people wanted an opt-out from autolink, either means they are incompetent, or arrogant. Did we get New Coke twice or did they learn a lesson?
Okay, so they introduce something that BREAKS MY SITE, and I should just be patient....why?
If WA causes problems with your site, then it is not WA that is breaking it. Your site is already broken. Fix your site.
If you don't like what it is doing, then block it.
Also, by #2, you seem to assume that their reasoning is as they state. That reason absolutely does not hold water. They're using it to ultimately make more money, at the expense of webmasters who did absolutely nothing wrong. That's not "evil?"
Nope, I don't consider greed or self-interest, by itself, to be evil. I also don't consider spammers or telemarketers to be evil. Annoying yes, evil no. I have seen evil, and this ain't it. (this is the day after Holocaust Rememberance Day after all)
You have a way of blocking it. Do it.
The user has their choice of clients to use, and they can certainly chose to go through WA, and the service provider (you) has the choice of whether you want to serve them.
You can also voice your concerns, but you should at least be voiced in a reasonable way. Accusing someone of Evil for making a tool is not reasonable.
I do find it strange though that because someone has hacked together a way of blocking it, that this is somehow an appropriate replacement for an opt-out process. After all, the fix works on the basis of an ip range that is (to be the best of my knowledge) unstated, and in flux. It's no substitute at all for an opt-out.
It also doesn't change the fact that from a wider perspective, this tool will undoubtedly generate large amounts of web traffic that will never be seen by a human being - for a potential very small time saving for those that are. Me blocking it from my site will do nothing to address this wider issue.
EDIT: Also, I think given the position Google occupy, they have a responsibility not to make this sort of tool available to a general population who will have no notion of the side effects of its widescale use. The fact that people elect to use it, does not mean they do so whilst in full posession of the implications. This sort of thing is also reinforced by time saving claims that are clearly bogus as detailed a couple of pages back.
Actually this is only if you would like to block all use of the WA...
Since G is sending X-moz prefetch headers only with the request for the page they are prefetching, you can block access to that specific request, but still allow those browsing your site to use WA without the prefetch capability...
IP blocking is a much more dangerous way to do this for 3 reasons. 1.) if you want to ensure it works you must update your block file every time they use a new address. 2.) you will be blocking real users from your site, who will very likely just go somewhere else. 3.) any G-bot with the same IP range will be blocked.
By blocking only the X-moz prefetch request, you are not dependent on, or subject to, any of the previous conditions.
The example on page 22 is *not* dependent on IP and only blocks the prefetch request.
Justin
Accusing someone of Evil for making a tool is not reasonable.
to which I reply
Agreed, but they are using it (at least in test) or providing it to others who are using it.
Please be very careful about equating things to "Evil".
Now about the other parties site being broken, just because an automated tool screws up a site doesn't mean that the site is "broken", sites have a design point, if the site functions according to its design it would be considered correctly functioning.
The incorrect activity in this case is the activation of links that were not indicated to the prefecth system as beinging prefetchable.
This activity was carried out by the WA.
I still have not seen a definitive answer to the how do I turn OFF this thing.
I see an answer that throws back an error message that may or may not (I don't run *dows) make it to the user.
Tossing it back in Google's face by way of a redirect is interesting but it doesn't provide a good user experience, likewise the error messages.
I will wait a bit longer before I suggest the tar pit method of control.
>> I see an answer that throws back an error message that may or may not (I don't run *dows) make it to the user.
I prefer not to go off half-cocked, so I tested it before I posted... with the .htaccess modification on page 22, the prefetch is blocked, but you can still navigate the site without any error generation... not much more I can say on the matter.
Have a good day all.
Justin
Also, has anyone verified that GWA does or does not honor Cache-control and Expires headers?
Today on the unblocked server, the numbers switched around, so that the 64.233.*.* is the problem, and the 72.14.*.* is minor. That means I have to start blocking 64.233.172.* and 64.233.173.*
Fortunately, these are the only Class C addresses within 64.233.*.* that I know of that are used for legitimate (non-WA) search functions:
64.233.161.*
64.233.163.*
64.233.167.*
64.233.171.*
64.233.179.*
64.233.183.*
64.233.185.*
64.233.187.*
64.233.189.*
Therefore, a block on 64.233.172.* and 64.233.173.* Class C addresses should not have any side effects. If the WA switches again, I'm going to get suspicious.
Google wouldn't be playing games with us, would they?
They giveth and then they taketh away (whoever they are).
Life is like that when folks play by their own rules.
The only question becomes what happens when the other side decides to play the same way?
And with that as something for some folks out there in the wacky WWW to ponder upon, I'll call it a night.
is that a joke oneguy...it had nothing to do with you, it's happening on this very page!
@ Namaste
No... I really messed up the forum display, and I wasn't using WA. I edited my post, and my edit fixed the issue I created / saw in my own browser.
I didn't mean to negate any seperate WA issue you might have had, apart from that. I only mentioned it because we were posting at the same time, and I wanted to be honest about what WA is messing up, and what it isn't.
It seems to be a terrible idea by itself.
Now about the other parties site being broken, just because an automated tool screws up a site doesn't mean that the site is "broken", sites have a design point, if the site functions according to its design it would be considered correctly functioning.
Maybe from a web design standpoint that does not count as being broken, but as a software engineer, I never would have gotten away with that excuse.
To me, the WA breaking a site is the same as not checking for an error on every fopen when writing c code, and taking appropriate action on an error.
Writing firmware for HA servers and NUMA systems, we didn't have the option of just breaking if something we didn't like happened. And there are a lot of bad things that can happen to big ol servers, and to little ol websites.
Blocking a rogue client or proxy is certainly one of the legitimate options as far as fixing your site, as long as it is within the realm of your design goals. If it is not, then you have to find some other way to deal with fixing your problem.
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /register.cgi on this server.
1) It states that pages can be specified for pre-fetching using the link tag and pre-fetch attribute.
2) The page references the Mozilla specification for pre-fetching.
3) Google includes the X-moz header for all accelerator requests.
It seems they are trying to give the impression that the Google accelerator follows the Mozilla specification when this is not the case. The Google accelerator follows all anchor links. The Mozilla fetches only those links with the relation 'next' or 'pre-fetch'.
Given this major difference in operation, why is the Google accelerator using the X-moz header? If we block all requests based on this, then we also block the well behaved original Mozilla pre-fetch feature.
In the absence of a complete opt out option, shouldn't Google be using a unique identifier in the header.
"We also include an X-Forwarded-For header which provides the original IP address in case webmasters want to perform granular geotargeting."
Then why did't Google implement this before releasing it as beta?
I load WA and go to Google and get Google U.S. I clicked on a few adwords that were not supposed to be targeted at me by accident. oops!
This should have been released as alpha to a select group imho.
Bill... your code and text improvements please...
I would do it but I was so upset by Google WA's barbarian inconsiderate loutish affront to my site that I had to spend some quality therapeutic time at the pub this evening. Do you have any idea how much an hour of pub therapy costs in California?
Claus posted the redirect you need in msg #325, just change from Google.com to your domain/pagename.html
Then write some page that spreads fear, uncertainty and doubt about Google Web Accellerator and publish it at that redirect page. Lots of sample material to choose from in this thread.
Maybe by Sunday I can write coherent paragraphs again and will post an anti-GWA manifest :)
should gin and tonic be used to wash down antibiotics? oh well...
I just checked our eCommerce site which automatically converts/targets prices for Canada/US/EU. with WA on, it just assumes you are in US.! :-(
[edited by: LeoXIV at 3:30 am (utc) on May 7, 2005]
Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, did highlight a few broad priorities for the company, like adding more types of information to Google's index and using personal information about each user to answer queries better. "We are moving to a Google that knows more about you,"
Combined with the Google patent application [webmasterworld.com] which spells how they plan to integrate user behavior in the algo, I fail to see how you can't connect the dots and see this as a piece of spyware that gives google all of the data it could possibly want. However as they say you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink ...
google = spyware. Time to find a new engine to use.
I can't be the only one wondering...
Is this the showdown issue?
Does Google finally prove or disprove that the opinions of webmasters and techies are important to their long term success?
Many of us seem to think it was important for the rise of Google. I thought they already ran away with themselves, but I'm not so sure now.
