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.
There is no reason to believe that G has "taken down" the WA. One of the ways to increase desire for something is to make it difficult to get. Look at G-Mail, still by invite? Still in Beta?
The other thing I would add, already alluded to by others, is that the claim of "faster" broadband connections does not have to have much validity. (I did not download WA.) The speedmeter that people reference could just as easily be like a hit counter that gives bogus numbers to create the illusion of a popular site.
The significant thing about WA is the data that G acquires at very little cost. Data about human behavior that is. Googlewatch has gained a new level of credibility in my eyes as I have watched this unfold.
I would guess that WA was downloaded and is in use by a statistically significant sample population by now. That means that G now has access to data about web user behaviors far beyond what is available to anybody else. That data is priceless, even without "personally identifying information".
A brilliant move from the perspective of market research and analysis. Believing that G has taken this down due to the outcry of the webmaster community, and applauding them for doing so, simply perpetuates the myth that G can "do no evil", IMHO.
WBF
It's not "good", it's not "bad" - it's just a very clever way to run a very large business, keeping people thinking that it's small and insignificant.
I agree completely and they do a better job with keeping a smalltime image - better than those that are smalltime. Matter of fact everything in your post is aligned with my own thoughts/POV...hehe
I don't believe this one has been put to sleep. They are probably just reconfiguring their DNS and servers, and then it comes back.
I hope they kill off WA for good and come out with their own browser without the prefetch crap. There would be plenty of people to use it so they get the info/user data they want without screwing around with peoples sites. Just hope they don't run "adsense" in the browser (like newer Opera vers)or it will kill the publishers and that would be in poor taste.
The only thing they could have done worse IMHO with WA is to use the same IP range as their Googlebot - that would be bad.
what is strange is all the rubbish GoogleGuy has been putting out lately: I'm just between meetings; gotta go for lunch; just going to sleep; well check over the weekend. hahahahaha...and all the time he says nothing useful.
What do you want from the guy? He has nothing to do with the WA. Given the situation he went above and beyond what I would have done in his position. People have to realize this is business and don't shoot the messenger for something they have little to do with or control over. You know he has a life too and can't be at the beckon call of every member at WebmasterWorld....jeez
Instead of discussing the well-being of a fellow member GG, lets return back to the big issue. Take a look at what Claus has just mentioned in msg#:420
>I don't believe this one has been put to sleep. They are probably just reconfiguring their DNS and servers, and then it comes back.<
This is very disturbing, indeed (:(
Google's relation with websites is much like Boeing's is to Airlines.
In the old days, GoogleGuy gave us useful commnets, which would give us direction. Now he's too busy. Take a look at this WA thread, there are so many doubts and greviances about it. Many Senior Members of the worldwide website community are disturbed by what they percieve as a threat. And there is nothing but silence and a few comments coming from the people who have released it.
It is entirely in Google's interests to maintain excellent relations with the industry. How long before one of us writes a piece of code that blocks WA? This community has created GDrive, Alexa spammer, and so many other pieces of code that destory the intended good work of the corporations.
I got the impression (from GG) that the header for prefetches included 'X-moz' and/or 'prefetch'.
I download rather standard access-log files daily, each about 1 MB in size.
Searching thru the last few days, I cannot find ANY x-moz or prefetch words at all.
1) Are these terms supposed to appear anywhere in access_log listings? -or-
2) Are GWA users still so few, that none happened by yet on my site?
- Larry
1. "Information wants to be free."
2. "The Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it."
3. "An Internet company with a $62 billion market cap views a decentralized market as both a threat and an opportunity, and will try to route everything they can through its own equipment."
Google will be back, and back, and back. By now webmasters are no better than populist scum to Google. They'll keep at it. Throw up a test balloon here, throw up another there, see what flies for the dumbed-down Internet surfers, and see it it also fools a sufficient number of clueless Wall Street pundits. Withdraw slightly, and temporarily, if it appears that it may have been a bit too much too soon.
"The greatest lesson that History teaches us is that no one learns from History."
What you see in your logs is "the request". What Google is talking about is the user-agent headers. You can see the headers that your user-agent is sending here:
[searchengineworld.com...]
There have been several posts saying how to block/query requests with the x-moz header. I haven't been totaly convinced by any of them. I wish jdmorgan would weigh-in on the subject.
Can I see if a G Windows Accelerator has prefetched files in my access_logs?
If so, exactly what do I look for? Something in the user-agent string? -Larry
Will there be something in "the request" that indicates the GWWA has been by or not? Something I can see in my log files listings? - Larry
and those hits have normal browser types (e.g. MSIE or Firefox) in their useragent strings. There may be other IP address ranges that GWA is using, but I am not aware of them.
I checked all 4 partial DNS #s. Out of 2 days of logs, maybe 1800 KB worthm I found only two files downloaded, an html page and the .gif image that the page calls. Scarcely any impact on bandwidth so far. -Larry
Here's the error.. We're sorry but you do not have permission to access null. Your IP address, 64.233.173.77, has been blocked due to a possible violation of our Terms of Service.
Alexa's terms of service, available at pages.alexa.com/help/terms.html, grants a limited license to make personal use of the service and expressly prohibits commercial use, copying, and the creation of derivative works. If you need programmatic access to Alexa data please use the Alexa Web Information Service (available at www.amazon.com/webservices).
To unblock your IP Address, click the Submit button below. Please note this will work only once.
64.233.173.77
OrgName: Google Inc.
OrgID: GOGL
Address: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
City: Mountain View
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 94043
Country: US
NetRange: 64.233.160.0 - 64.233.191.255
CIDR: 64.233.160.0/19
NetName: GOOGLE
NetHandle: NET-64-233-160-0-1
Parent: NET-64-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS1.GOOGLE.COM
NameServer: NS2.GOOGLE.COM
Comment:
RegDate: 2003-08-18
Updated: 2004-03-05
TechHandle: ZG39-ARIN
TechName: Google Inc.
TechPhone: +1-650-318-0200
TechEmail: arin-contact@google.com
OrgTechHandle: ZG39-ARIN
OrgTechName: Google Inc.
OrgTechPhone: +1-650-318-0200
OrgTechEmail: arin-contact@google.com
Should I understand that Alexa is blocking GWA?
Thanks.
<Yes Alexa is Blocking Google Windows Web Accelerator>
Thanks for the good news :-)
Have a great day and a successful week.
I would think it could only be if the form results are displayed on an insecure result page that it would be cached - not that Google takes the submitted data and passes it on to form scripts etc... any other ideas?
I'm trying to make a list of the IP's of this thing.
It would be very helpful if each of you that have it installed would visit one of those sites where you can lookup your IP, and then write the IP number in this thread with the country/region you're in (or state, if you want), like:
64.233.173.77 - US
Proxy Detected Is 64.233.173.81 in the US
It's only the IP of the WA / proxy that i'm interested in, not your own IP. I wasn't clear on that in the previous post, sorry.
Most specifically I was looking around places where I get my updates on companies for making stock buying decisions - stone cold silence. The only downturn story was about the off topic CPM ads could "unseat their dominant position as a contextual search ad service".
The only thing new that showed up on my radar this afternoon was some fluff PR piece:
"Google To Cut Seconds Off Surfing"
[story.news.yahoo.com...]
Must be nice to get paid to regurgitate press releases without doing any investigating on the topic.
I need something simple in my life like that.
