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.
elbpdx that IP is very close to a Googlebot IP. Both of these have been used by Googlebot:
216.239.53.98 - googlebot
216.239.53.99 - googlebot
Also, it is the first time this range has been reported. Are you absolutely sure that this is the IP for the Web Accelerator?
<I've been watching the mainstream media looking to see is there was much mention, if any, about the WA flap or the DNS fiasco over the weekend and it's been surprisingly very quiet unless they are just slow to catch up.>
Maybe because the matter of GWA is too technical to explain and understand for mainstream media audience.
People understand terms related to privacy and copyright infringement issues. But talking about DNS, IP address, SSL connections and codings to block GWA are complicated issues for the majority of people.
it's been surprisingly very quiet unless they are just slow to catch up.
I don't see why you are surprised. If you go through this 450 message thread, and start deleting "non-story" messages, there really isn't anything left for the non-tech sector to cover.
On the privacy issue, they are going to be gun shy after they jumped on the anti-gmail bandwagon. So take out all those concerns.
Take out all the posts by people that are always ranting about anything and everything google.
Drop the posts full of speculation about what Google might do with this or that. Or that Google is trying to route all the internet traffic through their servers.
Toss out all the technical discussion about how to block it. Even the fact that websites are blocking it isn't much of a story. Banks blocked my netscape, mozilla, opera and konqueror browsers for years without any press coverage.
They certainly aren't going to care about speculation on how it will affect server bandwidth. And a net gain or loss on server load has yet to be proven.
I don't see the WSJ publishing a front page article about how GWA is making stats programs less accurate than they already are. It's not exactly a big concern to the general population.
About the only thing with any sort of general public interest is the "filling up the shopping cart with unordered items" angle.
But the problem with making a big stink about that is that it is now in very limited testing and there probably aren't even any reporters in the pool. There aren't many editors that will accept a story from a reporter that has not even tried it out.
I've never liked proxies, because it is very rare for them to be set up right, and GWA is no exception. And even when they are, there are a lot of sites that don't have the right cache settings, or no way for the site administrator to change the settings.
The way I see it, the only way to make a difference is to try and help Google to work through the problems, or to have enough websites that block it that users just aren't interested in using it anymore.
[edited by: BigDave at 9:34 pm (utc) on May 9, 2005]
Maybe because the matter of GWA is too technical to explain and understand for mainstream media audience.People understand terms related to privacy and copyright infringement issues. But talking about DNS, IP address, SSL connections and codings to block GWA are complicated issues for the majority of people.
I didn't say I hadn't seen ANY coverage just not the BIG mainstream media or nothing showing up on the stock sites news aggregators. You would think investors would be interested in eWeeks 3 day old article "Google's Accelerator Breaks Web Apps, Security." but not a peep.
[eweek.com...]
Even if you don't understand the technology or are addressing a non-technical audience, the title says plenty and might be interesting reading if I'm about to spend $200+/share
Am I accusing anyone of filtering the news they show?
Noooooooooooooo........ :)
Yep. 216.239.53.89 is the google proxy system I'm hitting from here in the northwest US.
Mayer said the problem stemmed from the way some sites have implemented their HTTP cache-control headers...Google plans to notify the Webmasters of the affected sites about the need to fix their cache-control headers as well as work on a solution within Web Accelerator, Mayer said.
That, in my mind, is a gorilla throwing their weight around. "You will adapt to our application," as it were
Will we be contacted indivudually if this applies to us?
WBF
That, in my mind, is a gorilla throwing their weight around. "You will adapt to our application," as it were
You've even heard their mantra before:
"We are Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!"
That, in my mind, is a gorilla throwing their weight around. "You will adapt to our application," as it were.
That might become the case. Maybe 'the gorilla' can punch me but can 'the gorilla' slap gorilla (B) or even gorilla (C). They even dont need 'the gorilla'!
1.) (in the US) There were probably a ton of pre-packaged Mother's Day stories, and
2.) They pulled the product, citing a "nothing newsworthy" type reason. It does make me wonder why Google isn't throwing press releases out there talking about the huge success WA has been.
If they reintroduce the product anything like it was previously, I suspect we'll see the same cycle start again. That is... unhappy webmasters and privacy advocates making a fuss, leading to more coverage.
How often do we see 47 page topics around here?
Why did the folks at Google launch GWA?
- Google said; to reduce the time that it takes broadband users to
download and view web pages.
- I say; to collect historical data to be used in the new algos and as a market research tool. I expect Google to launch more of the same in future.
What do you say?
[news.zdnet.com...]
BTW... This discussion is great. I have learned how to gzip and deny proxy caching at server level. Lovely... :)
Why did the folks at Google launch GWA?
PageRank is a mathematical model to simulate how a person traverses the web.
The problem is that it's not very accurate. If a link is hidden or is on a Links page that nobody bothers to look at, pageRank is still passed to the new site, even though in reality no human is ever likely to follow that link.
By using data from a web proxy, rather than having to simulate how people browse the web, they can actually watch how real people browse the web.
They're hoping that if they get a high enough adoption rate, they can use it to replace PageRank (which is still in existence despite some claims, it's just been heavily patched up to keep it working)
If they get a high enough adoption rate to ensure they have a good sample size of data, this is how it will work:
If a browser clicks on a link via the web proxy then it will pass ProxyRank to the page you clicked on. If you hide your link from humans or place a link that isn't relevant then few people will click on it, so it'll pass very little ProxyRank.
They'll use the technology they have for AdSense to detect invalid clicks (so webmasters can't sit there all day clicking their own links)
[news.zdnet.co.uk...]
If a browser clicks on a link via the web proxy then it will pass ProxyRank to the page you clicked on. If you hide your link from humans or place a link that isn't relevant then few people will click on it, so it'll pass very little ProxyRank.
Wow, that really is an interesting explanation. It’s to bad Google just doesn’t come out and explain it themselves what it is for. Not many public companies can launch something this significant without explaining why they are doing it. You would think people who own stock would have a right to be informed exactly what they hope to accomplish with this thing.
Any how, this makes a lot of sense, and will have a real impact on the whole link swapping exercise going on.
You would think people who own stock would have a right to be informed exactly what they hope to accomplish with this thing.
Not if all you own is a tracking stock, which is all that the publically available Google stock really is. All the voting stock is owned by insiders.
A 16th century inquisitor has more things in common with a heretic than GMail with WA.
Even if that holds true in your campus, that “Beta Release is just a Beta Release”, why not making WA like Gmail Invite Only for a year.
All the voting stock is owned by insiders.
Guess that's why they have a Class A and Class B common stock. :)
anybody having the 2003 Norton Firewall would have found the GWA impossible to remain active and would have had to remove it instantly.So the WA has one redeeming quality.
Thank you for your
interest in Google Web Accelerator.
We have currently reached our
maximum capacity of users and
are actively working to increase
the number of users we can support.
We have unblocked the IP--you should regain access within thirty
minutes.
We regret any inconvenience to you of this measure to protect our
servers from abusive activity (requests well beyond those that might
result from actual web surfing)."
I wonder how long this will last?
