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.
Lets say I just browsed over Widgets - Blue page
I then went to the Widgets - Red page
now my Widgets - Blue page is already in my brwoser cache, when I hit the Widgets - Blue link again, the page loads back instantly from the browser cache. The WA gives itself a nice credit of a second!
it is causing some page formatting errors when new posts have been added. In other words, it has a problem with dynamic content!
Not that I wish to defend WA, but that was probably my fault, and I fixed it when I edited my post.
I had an extra end quote that I removed.
I am on Home, but I keep hitting the home link again and again on my website, each time the page blinks, WA gives itself a 0.4 sec raise. Hahahahaha...wish my boss would follow the same system for my work
try this:
goto Google.com and toggle between the Images and the Web links, and watch the fun.
Regarding robots.txt, if someone installs a proxy cache or web accelerator (be it Propel, NetZero, squid, or whatever), I wouldn't necessarily expect that proxy cache to be restrained by robots.txt. The cache is acting for the user, not as Googlebot or other spider.
Please stop dodging the issues. I am not referring to the proxy as well you know.
I'm referring to the WA client, not the proxy (I don't have any problems with the proxy whatsoever).
The client does act as a spider. It crawls links of its own accord without instruction from the user (I don't regard a mouseover as an instruction to do something). That is why it should obey robots.txt
I'm dismayed at your attitude. You seem to accuse everyone of crying wolf despite the fact that we have explained very specific problems that have occured. These problems can be recreated, they are not fiction.
I have not had any problems with Google software before (apart from the multiple drive issue on Google Desktop). I have not joined the mass hysteria that breaks out on every Google product release. I am deeply offended that you brush off these problems as whinging and crying wolf.
As I say, these are very specific problems and they can be recreated. It's not a matter of waiting to see whether the benefits outweigh the bad. It's a matter of a misbehaving application causing damage to one website and causing serious problems with another.
What makes the whole thing more frustrating is that on one hand Google doesn't provide any way of preventing the WA crawler from accessing pages that cause problems.
However, on the other hand you refuse point blank to fix these issues or even get someone to look at them.
I repeat my question. Why do you not give server admins a mechanism to prevent access to pages that the crawler misbehaves on?
If this facility were to have been provided, I wouldn't be driven to despair and be forced to harass you in to doing something about it.
I haven't seen sites trying not to rank well or heard any complaints about sites slowing down. But the prefetching uses the "X-moz: prefetch" header
That's because you're in BETA - wait until 90% of the net installs this mess.
So tell me WHY should I have to filter for pre-fetch anything?
My sites been online 8 years now, never had to filter pre-fetch before...
I just want to OPT-OUT period - I dont want to write code to block it, I shouldn't have to do anything since it's NOT MY FAULT it's happening.
Do you guys just get up in the morning laughing and go "Hey! I got a great new idea that will keep Bill busy for his weekend off! His wife's going to leave him yet if we keep this up - What a HOOT!"
That isn't the case here.
A case in point would be cache/memory/device consistancy in a computer system.
A large number of "memory" locations in an address space are marked as not prefetchable because they are control facilities and not really memory.
All sorts of strange events happen in systems that improperly operate on the assumption that the entire address space is prefetchable.
Despite what Google says, it doesn't (on average) make your site faster for users. It may make it faster for some users some of the time, but that comes at the price of making it slower for everybody else. And it will grind everything to a complete halt once it gets adopted by a larger audience.
but whats wrong with Prefetch? I like it...bandwidh is quite cheap...and I would love that my site is faster for users
Do a little reading on how telephony and networking works and how they provide bandwidth capable of sustaining a grade of service for average peak periods and you'll quickly see why this technology is dangerous to the networks.
Have you ever noticed after a major disaster [like an earthquake] everyone picks up the phones and get all circuits busy if you can even get a dial-tone? Nation-wide cicuits are jammed, calls aren't going thru major hubs as the system just isn't designed to handle all people getting on the phone at once, it crumbles.
OK, let's simplify the concept, if you have a 20 person office you might get 10 phone lines for incoming/outgoing calls. Now imagine what happens if all 20 people try to pick up the phone at once?
OK, now instead of people and phones it's browsers, pre-fetch and a limited bandwidth pipe for everyone to share so imagine 20,000 users all pre-fetching pages on a 10 gigabit pipe trying to handle 20 gigabit of data.
BINGO! there you have the potential consequence.
Some people already report they can't use Vonage and surf the net at the same time so I have no illusions of what's going to happen when this technology goes wide.
And if it ever causes any sorts of problems on one of my sites, I will implement a permanent ban on WA. End of issue.
As a webmaster I have to deal with all sorts of problem UAs and proxies, this would be just one more. What is the big deal? If you don't like it, block it and be done with it.
What is the big deal? If you don't like it, block it and be done with it.
How many of your visitors that might get an error message would be smart enough to figure out you're not offline or defunct?
You tell me what's wrong with that.
I don't run *dows so I can't speak from first hand experience about how this puppy actually works.
I can however talk about prefetch in general terms.
However given the general publics' ability to determine what causes a website problem I'll have to agree with you.
Joe sixpack and Jane wine cooler would think you were circling the bowl.
What is the big deal? If you don't like it, block it and be done with it.
Not an easy task when they keep changing ip's. The fact they didn't implement an opt-out after the flak over autolink, demonstrates they want the data more than anything else and couldn't care less about web publishers.
I'd say all of them should be pretty aware when faced with "403 Access Denied" or "403 Forbidden". You can easily write your own text if you don't think that's clear enough. The text i currently use goes like this:
Access denied
Access has been denied as we suspect it's automated. Please use a normal browser. If this does not work, please access the site from another IP-address.
Specifically, some proxies, including Google Web Accelerator, are disallowed here.
The call would go "what's proxies? do I need to install something?"
How many of your visitors that might get an error message would be smart enough to figure out you're not offline or defunct?
Personally, I really don't care what they assume. See my first point in my previous post.
But supposing that I did care, I would serve them the page, with a big header telling them that WA has problems with the site. I would also remove all the links from those served pages so there would be nothing to prefetch.
Then the user simply has a chice to make, turn off WA or don't use my site. It is the same as the choice I had to make when my bank did not support my browser of choice.
Not an easy task when they keep changing ip's.
There is no apostrophe in IPs. That makes it possessive.
First off, it has only been out there for 2 days. Of course they are going to change and add IPs. There are also very few people using it so far, so I am still not concerned. As/if more people use it, the IP addresses will become more stable.
It would not take much effort to write a script that would flag ever google owned address that is sending you prefetches, and then block that address.
It would not take much effort to write a script that would flag ever google owned address that is sending you prefetches, and then block that address.
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.
Am I the only one who can't access this site (without being logged in) when I have the web accelerator on? (Using IE 6)
I get the following message...
-------------------------------------------------------------
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
-------------------------------------------------------------
If I turn it off, log in, and turn it back on again...all is fine.
Just wondering :/
------------------------------
# google proxy: 72.14.192.0 - 72.14.207.255
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^72\.14\.(19[2-9]¦20[1-7]) [OR]
# google prefetch
RewriteCond %{X-moz} ^prefetch
#redirect to google.com
RewriteRule .* [google.com...] [R,L]
------------------------------
This will pass a prefetch request or a request from one of those WA IPs on to google.com. So, if they try to accelerate your site, they will have to accelerate their own in stead.
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?
