Holy Crap!!! Best FreeWare Ever!!!

[MattGTO]

I had always wanted to try out Google's Web Accelerator (just go into google and click more), but I just now downloaded it. Oh my gosh. My Internet is going soooooo much faster, and I was already at 54.0 mbps. I can load an entire Youtube video in just a few seconds. Guys, try it. Its absolutely astounding.

 

[motulist]

It doesn't list safari in its compatibility list. Too bad, it sounded interesting.

 

[Hrududu]

"What are Google Web Accelerator's system requirements?

To use Google Web Accelerator, your computer must have a Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP 3+ operating system. Google Web Accelerator works for the Internet Explorer 5.5+ or Firefox 1.0+ browsers."

I'll keep my slow internet and use Mac OS.

 

[chainprayer]

does it work on osx if i have firefox?

 

[Ivan P]

does it work on osx if i have firefox?

"What are Google Web Accelerator's system requirements?

To use Google Web Accelerator, your computer must have a Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP 3+ operating system. Google Web Accelerator works for the Internet Explorer 5.5+ or Firefox 1.0+ browsers."

Apparently not.

 

[Henri Gaudier]

54 mbps ... eeeeekkkk! .... drool .... today's connection speed for me is 28.8kbps. Wimax is meant to be coming sometime this year but my house is surrounded by lots of trees and so line of sight is none existent. And I'm paying 20€ / £16 / $30 a month for this! So envious.

 

[janey]

...My Internet is going soooooo much faster...Guys, try it. Its absolutely astounding.

This is, if you haven't noticed yet, MacRumors. Also if you haven't noticed, Google Web Accelerator is Windows only.

Also, it's not faster, it appears to be faster because google is doing things like prefetching pages and caching them on google servers to make it appear faster (since they have so many all over the place). It's only going to benefit you if the site in question is overloaded or very slow.

Lastly, it should have no effect on youtube because the biggest bandwidth usage on a youtube page is streaming video, which is not cached or prefetched by web accelerator (although, google did acquire youtube). Any perceived performance increase on your part does not actually exist.

 

[clevin]

Any perceived performance increase on your part does not actually exist.

no, it does exist, according to google

* 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.

DNS resolving, sending request and waiting for server to response, as well as reload page are all significant time consumers in surfing, its not perceived, its just how internet works, and GWA helps a bit, one way or another, to various degree.

PS. I do have problem with GWA, mainly because of privacy concerns.

 

[kwood]

I trust Clevin on this matter, aside from really being right, he has a Netscape avatar. 'nuff said.

 

[gkarris]

Spyware that increases your internet speed, oh boy...

 

[wonderbread57]

Spyware that increases your internet speed, oh boy...

this.

just like the google tool bar for IE reporting (back to google) every url you browse.

 

[janey]

no, it does exist, according to google

Sorry, I thought I was specific enough. I read:

I can load an entire Youtube video in just a few seconds.

and in regards to youtube videos, there will be almost no difference in how fast a video loads because google web accelerator does not prefetch or cache streaming video. And since youtube is hosted by google themselves in the first place..

So the performance increase is most likely negligible if not nonexistent when we're talking about youtube. There will be a performance increase otherwise.

 

[RainForRent]

I want to trust Google. I want to think that they'll put out a better phone than Apple. That they supply me will all sorts of neat things that make my life better– Google Maps and Google 411, to say the least, but, but... then they put out this. And then I have to sit back and question all of the nice things they did for us.

 

[localoid]

It doesn't list safari in its compatibility list. Too bad, it sounded interesting.

You could setup Apache under OS X to act as a caching proxy server (to cache Web content locally) and enjoy the same sort of benefits from caching. Or run a Web proxy such as Squid, etc.

 

[tsice19]

Does Google Web Accelerator even offer a noticeable difference? Or does it just make you think that it's faster with it's speedometer?