Google Prefetching for Mozilla Browsers

Watch for this... by grub · 2005-03-31 02:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

I can see employees being confronted for browsing pages they never actually looked at. An obvious example: innocently searching for info on the silly Vin Diesel movie "XXX" turns up a nice mix of Vin and pr0n in the top results. Presumably a mix of both are loading up in the background

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Trolling is a art,

Re:Watch for this... by the_mad_poster · 2005-03-31 02:39 · Score: 3, Insightful

Prefetching is one of those things that seems like a really great idea on paper, but doesn't hold up so well in practice.

The problem is that you have things like 'rel=next' that expect the user to go to some next "logical" page, but no structure to a site to encourage that logic. You get people upping bandwidth costs and slowing down browsing time because the site maintainer THINKS they'll go to some next page but the site design actually ENCOURAGES them to go to some other, unrelated page.

In OSS, a lot of the maintainers and coders are just "hackers" or college kids contributing bits and pieces of less broad knowledge over a bigger project team, not real software engineers who have been trained to really think through the consequences of certain design decisions. They don't research their target audience to realize that, while the prefetching feature would be great in a perfect world, the world isn't perfect, and it can really cause problems when so many people are moving from professional browsers to more amateur ones that test out these features in what they THINK is a mainly geek-oriented audience.

I could see why someone at Google might think this is a good idea, but I'd expect that a company with the means to do the necessary research wouldn't go about implementing this kind of hackish "feature set" until it had thought things through a little better.

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Re:Watch for this... by Juvenall · 2005-03-31 02:40 · Score: 5, Funny

To be fair though, it's never appropriate to search for Vin Diesel.
Re:Watch for this... by argent · 2005-03-31 02:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

You get people upping bandwidth costs and slowing down browsing time because the site maintainer THINKS they'll go to some next page but the site design actually ENCOURAGES them to go to some other, unrelated page.

There are extensive studies from third parties on what people look at and do when they search on google. And you know what, they found people tend to look at and go to the top result, and don't even glance below the top few results most of the time.

I'd expect that a company with the means to do the necessary research wouldn't go about implementing this kind of hackish "feature set" until it had thought things through a little better.

I'd expect that Google has better figures on where people go to from Google's search pages than anyone else.
Re:Watch for this... by otisaardvark · 2005-03-31 02:48 · Score: 2, Informative

This isn't for pages WITHIN a site, where determining what is 'next' may be problematic. This is for search results.

Here there is a logical choice to prefetch, namely, the top search result. This just autoloads the page to which "I'm feeling lucky" points.

I still don't necessarily like it, it wastes bandwidth. Yes, I know I can turn prefetching off in about:config, but most people won't.
Re:Watch for this... by delymyth · 2005-03-31 02:57 · Score: 2, Interesting

I know people who sometimes connect with a 56k modem, and me myself, sometimes I connect with my mobile phone (GPRS, 10kb/sec max as far as I could see).
It wouldn't be so nice to have bandwith sucked up by all those prefetching (and no, I don't want to change, neither the browser neither the Search Engine).

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-- Personal Blog: http://www.delymyth.net/ (italian)
Re:Watch for this... by bfields · 2005-03-31 02:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

Prefetching is one of those things that seems like a really great idea on paper, but doesn't hold up so well in practice.

The page you cite in support appears to be an argument specifically against prefetching pages with the rel=next attribute. As you say:
The problem is that you have things like 'rel=next' that expect the user to go to some next "logical" page, but no structure to a site to encourage that logic.

That's a flaw in firefox's prefetching logic, not in site-designers' use of rel=next, which was never intended to be used to indicate links the user was most likely to follow.
In any case, google is actually using rel="prefetch", which *is* intended for that purpose. And google's use looks pretty sensible: "This tag is only inserted when it is likely that the user will click on the first link." From experimenting it appears that it's only used on some searches; e.g. the example they give is the first hit on a search for "stanford". So presumably they have fairly good evidence that a user is actually likely to click on such a link--I suspect they have enough data on this that they don't need to just guess.
In OSS, a lot of the maintainers and coders are just "hackers" or college kids contributing bits and pieces of less broad knowledge over a bigger project team, not real software engineers who have been trained to really think through the consequences of certain design decisions.... I could see why someone at Google might think this is a good idea, but I'd expect that a company with the means to do the necessary research wouldn't go about implementing this kind of hackish "feature set" until it had thought things through a little better.

I think you're making some huge generalizations here based on very little evidence.
--Bruce Fields
Re:Watch for this... by shaitand · 2005-03-31 03:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

In commercial development, a lot of the maintainers and coders are just "hacks" or college grads, who know how to write a resume and interview well, contributing bits and pieces of less broad knowledge over a smaller project team, not real experienced software engineers doing what they want to do and who have the brains or inclination to really think through the consequences of all design decisions.

"and it can really cause problems when so many people are moving from professional browsers to more amateur ones that test out these features in what they THINK is a mainly geek-oriented audience."

Precisely what browsers are you referring to? Perhaps you would care to let us know which browsers your highness believes to be "Professional" and which he believes are "more amateur". In general, I would contend the latter are actually superior browsers and that is why people move to them. Every browser I know of goes through a development, alpha, and beta stage to test features before final release. Also, google is implementing this, not a browser.

"I could see why someone at Google might think this is a good idea, but I'd expect that a company with the means to do the necessary research wouldn't go about implementing this kind of hackish "feature set" until it had thought things through a little better."

Perhaps they do not use rel=next attributes and believe they have a bit more data at their fingertips than you do. Maybe, just maybe, you are the one who has not performed any research and google has in fact examined a great deal of data. Maybe that data even tells them that the number of people who continue to the top search results is staggering.
Re:Watch for this... by anethema · 2005-03-31 03:03 · Score: 5, Informative

So turn it off in about:config, nothing lost.

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It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Re:Watch for this... by smallpaul · 2005-03-31 03:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

Your post is confusing. First you say that prefetching doesn't work that well in practice and present a link to Simon Willison's blog. But the blog says that prefetching is an "excellent feature" except for a couple of quirks in Mozilla's implementation. Google does not trigger those quirks so they are irrelevant.
Then you go off on a tangent about how "real software engineers" think through their design decisions more than "open source hackers". This is totally contrary to my experience. I would more highly rate the software engineering of Mozilla against Internet Explorer, Unix versus Windows or Apache versus IIS. I could go through a long list of brutal design decisions in commercial software that did not hold up in the real world but I'll just mention Clippy and the Windows registry as two high-profile examples.
Finally, it is Google, a commercial software services company that is the topic of the article. So your whole argument is self-defeating. Either Google doesn't conform to your vision of real software engineering or the feature is not really at odds with real software engineering.
Re:Watch for this... by cyfer2000 · 2005-03-31 03:11 · Score: 2, Informative

For example, if you search triblock copolymer rheology there will be no prefetch. If you search Mozilla there will be prefetch.

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There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Re:Watch for this... by switcha · 2005-03-31 03:11 · Score: 5, Funny

Hi there. I just came across your post. I was searching for "Vin Diesel" on Google...

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You know what? ... A little club soda *did* get that out!
Re:Watch for this... by TimeTraveler1884 · 2005-03-31 03:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

From the FireFox prefetch FAQ:

Is there a preference to disable link prefetching?
Yes, there is a hidden preference that you can set to disable link prefetching. Add this line to your prefs.js file located in your Mozilla profile directory:

user_pref("network.prefetch-next", false);

We are considering adding UI for this preference (see bug 166648); however, our theory is that if link prefetching needs to be disabled then there must be something wrong with the implementation. We would rather improve the implementation if it does not work correctly, than simply expect users to locate some obscure preference in the preferences UI. Heck, the Mozilla preferences UI is already crowded enough ;-)

I find this statement particulary interesting:
We are considering adding UI for this preference (see bug 166648); however, our theory is that if link prefetching needs to be disabled then there must be something wrong with the implementation.
Um, that is pretty arrogant to assume why people would want to disable things. Until I read this article I didn't even know that Firefox did this. I don't like it one bit from a security standpoint. I don't want my browser running around going to sites that I don't intened to visit. And certainly, not because Google tells my browser to do so.

I suppose at the very least, it can be disabled.
Re:Watch for this... by delymyth · 2005-03-31 03:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

Of course, this assumes that you do NOT pay by the byte (as you might on a mobile phone). For a modem connection, it is OK. Also, it assumes that you have nothing going on in the background. If all you have running is Firefox, this is a good thing. On the other hand, if you have a torrent running in the background, then Firefox gets faster at the expense of the torrent.
Luckily I "flatted" myself for GPRS (I have 400MB for 30 days at a flat rate), but it would be better if I can chose search by search if it has to prefetch or not.
I don't have always bandwidth-sucking processes running, and I'd prefer to have a "prefetch" checkbox near the search box.
Am I only searching? Prefetch them!
Am I doing too many things at the same time? Leave it all alone, maybe the search isn't my primary task.

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-- Personal Blog: http://www.delymyth.net/ (italian)
Re:Watch for this... by argent · 2005-03-31 04:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

Do you mean this hoax?

What hoax? He disagrees with the basis of the study. That doesn't mean the study is fraudulent (that IS what the term "hoax" implies) nor that his disagreement is valid. In addition, his complaint is that the study may not actually be useful for marketeers... NOT that it's irrelevant to this discussion.
Re:Watch for this... by monkeydo · 2005-03-31 04:43 · Score: 2, Funny

If he's the luckiest person alive, wouldn't he just need one lottery ticket?

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Re:Watch for this... by northcat · 2005-03-31 04:45 · Score: 2, Informative

I'd expect that Google has better figures on where people go to from Google's search pages than anyone else.

No. It doesn't have any way to know which result a user clicked. It doesn't link results to its own website which redirects to the actual website, like Yahoo does (or used to, haven't used yahoo in a while). Other than that, Google can't do a better job than anyone else.
Re:Watch for this... by damiam · 2005-03-31 04:57 · Score: 4, Informative

Google does use a redirect script, but only for a small percentage of sessions. And you probably wouldn't notice; they use Javascript to display the original URL in the status bar. (IIRC)

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Re:Watch for this... by Kergan · 2005-03-31 05:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

As I reply on my blog:

We've a positively irrelevant methodology that leads to the presentation of a proof (as in the Cmabrigde uinervtisy rscheearch), and the meaningless proof is then served to customers as a sales argument. Isn't this a little bit of a fraud?

More precise:

Stopping to read upon seeing the top results doesn't mean you found what you're looking for; more likely, you quickly scan the first results, conclude on the relevance of your query, sometimes click on the first just in case, and search again.

But the Enquiro research merely emphasizes that users click on the first result -- a reasonably obvious result don't you think? -- and do not explore why users do so.

Moreover, the Enquiro research does not mention the conversion rate. Whereas, this is very much the only thing that counts if you're a webmaster.

Now, it is worth noting here that given 10 powerpoint slides, you tend to remember the first few and the last few. It is a perfectly normal pattern: It comes from 10 being greater than 7, plus or minus 2 -- the maximum number of items a typical individual can manipulate.

Likewise, if you feed 10 search results to a visitor, expect him to remember the first few (stored for comparing with the next result), the last few (the last seen), and one or two in the middle (the ones that left him least indifferent).

Likewise, when it comes to choosing which product to buy, expect a few visitors to go for one of the first results. But as the visitor compares more products, he is also more likely to act consistently and buy. Thus, expect many more to go for the last result, or for the last result left him least indifferent.
Re:Watch for this... by smeenz · 2005-03-31 07:50 · Score: 2, Interesting

For the last several weeks at least, every google search I've done from work has had the click tracking links, and it never hides it on the status bar.
This doesn't happen at home... but always at work, and it's not cached, because the response is dynamic (it is a search engine after all)
For example, the first link returned from my work machie when searching for 'bob' (ignore the stupid space in the URL added by slashdot):

http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=U&start=2&q=http:// www.bobthebuilder.org/&e=9901

but from home, it's just

http://www.bobthebuilder.org
Re:Watch for this... by jesser · 2005-03-31 10:54 · Score: 2, Informative

Google occasionally makes search results go through a redirect, so it has statistics about which results users clicked on for maybe 1% of searches.

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The shareholder is always right.

MSIE/MSN by mirko · 2005-03-31 02:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

Does somebody knows whether MSIE and MSN collaborate the same way?
Anyway it could be obvious that Google tries to establishes such alliances against his main concurrent (besides Yahoo).

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Trolling using another account since 2005.

Padding? by Quixote · 2005-03-31 02:40 · Score: 5, Interesting

Would prefetching pad the click count for the ads that Google shows along the side? I know, the client (Moz) adds a
X-moz: prefetch
header, but how many server admins log this?

Re:Padding? by nautical9 · 2005-03-31 03:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

If you're referring to the sites that google's adding the prefetch links for, then no - since there's no "clicking" happening for anything but the result page. If anything, the impression to click ratios will go down, because the page (and the google image ads on it) are being loaded, but the client will never click on it because he never saw it.
If you're referring to potential click-fraud that a malicious site may do by adding a bunch of "prefetch" links on their page that points to the ad, I seriously doubt it, since no one but the client's machine knows what the links are (since I believe they're loaded at the time the image is generated).
Perhaps an enterprising fraudster may write some clever javascript that waits for the google ad to load, and then generates the prelinks - but I doubt the browser would then notice the change and go prefetch them. Besides, it'd be easier to just make an invisible frame and set it's href location. But again, I doubt you can dynamically figure out what the google ad click URLs are with javascript alone.

Link is broken by KinkifyTheNation · 2005-03-31 02:41 · Score: 5, Informative

Replace the %23 with a # and the url will work.

Re:Gone already? by kubrick · 2005-03-31 02:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

Not sure if it changed, or if the submitter or editor mangled the link...

http://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html#prefetch ing

Based on where it's inserting the space, I'd say both. (Submitter mangled, editor posted without checking.)

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deus does not exist but if he does

how about a link that works... by ...+James+... · 2005-03-31 02:41 · Score: 4, Informative

Slashdot kills the # character in the URL: prefetching faq

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I hope they let us turn it off. by Short+Circuit · 2005-03-31 02:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm on dial-up at home, and the last thing I want is to download 500K of pages I might not actually view.

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This is Potentially Dangerous by cyranoVR · 2005-03-31 02:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

Ever heard of the concept "one click and you're guilty?" Users of this feature who unknowingly perform a search that returns results containting offensive/illegal content may find themselves being prosecuted by local, state or Federal authorities...

Proof of concept: Google caught in anti-Semitism flap. Replace "anti-semitism" with "child pornography" and you'll understand what I'm getting at...

Re:This is Potentially Dangerous by Rakshasa+Taisab · 2005-03-31 03:10 · Score: 4, Funny

Note to self; Remember to turn of network.prefetch-next when googling for "child pornography".

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- These characters were randomly selected.
Re:This is Potentially Dangerous by stewby18 · 2005-03-31 05:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

How many innocuous Google searches return illegal content as the top hit and have data suggesting to Google that enough people follow that first link that it should be prefetched?

broken link, here is the correct one by grandmofftarkin · 2005-03-31 02:44 · Score: 3, Funny

a href="http://www.google.com/help/features.html#pre fetch"

Link... by xtracto · 2005-03-31 02:44 · Score: 2, Informative

Here is The working Google link

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Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'

Re:Link... by xtracto · 2005-03-31 02:46 · Score: 2, Informative

well, somehow, slashdot or google manages to change the # witha %23... so:

http://www.google.com/help/features.html#prefetch

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Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'

Re:Links by sharkey · 2005-03-31 02:44 · Score: 4, Informative

BUGzilla blocks Slashdot referrers, not MOzilla.

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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.

No they don't... by Phil+John · 2005-03-31 02:45 · Score: 2, Informative

...that's just Bugzilla, anything else on the mozilla site accepts referrals from slashdot.org.

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I am NaN

Re:I never thought speed was a problem with Google by TobascoKid · 2005-03-31 02:46 · Score: 3, Informative

It's not the speed of google - it's the speed of jumping off google and on to the website "most likely" to be what you're searching for.

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At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.

I think I'll leave it off by oneandoneis2 · 2005-03-31 02:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

I use FF in my job at a pharmaceutical company, and looking for some medical terms in Google can often bring up some results of sites I really don't want to be visiting (Well, not from work, anyway *ahem* )

The last thing I want is for those pages to show up in the company's web access logs, so I think I'll skip this feature when I'm at work.

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So.. it has come to this

Ack! by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-31 02:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'm using a modem you insensitive clod!

Yes - from the page with the bad link by slash-tard · 2005-03-31 02:48 · Score: 5, Informative

1. Type "about:config" the address bar.

2. Scroll down to the setting "network.prefetch-next" and set the value to "False".

Re:Yes - from the page with the bad link by anethema · 2005-03-31 03:18 · Score: 3, Informative

It is better to put this in a user.js along with all the other settings you want to keep between installations.

--

It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

Comments by hendridm · 2005-03-31 02:48 · Score: 5, Informative

3. I want to block/ignore prefetch requests. What should I do?

To block or ignore prefetch requests (from Google and other web sites), you should configure your web server to return a 404 HTTP response code for requests that contain the "X-moz: prefetch" header.

Sucks for those of us on shared providers, I guess, who don't want this so our bandwidth costs don't increase.

I wish they had an option in the Google preferences to disable this, as I don't need a slower connection. Fortunately, you can disable it:

Yes, there is a hidden preference that you can set to disable link prefetching. Add this line to your prefs.js file located in your Mozilla profile directory:
user_pref("network.prefetch-next", false);

It would be nice if there was an option in Firefox prefs to do this so I don't have to remember it every time I reload.

Re:Comments by justforaday · 2005-03-31 03:03 · Score: 4, Informative

It would be nice if there was an option in Firefox prefs to do this so I don't have to remember it every time I reload.

Doesn't changing this value on the about:config screen do that?

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Re:Comments by slim · 2005-03-31 03:04 · Score: 2, Informative

Something like the following ought to work in .htaccess

SetEnvIf X-moz ^prefetch prefetch_deny
Deny from env=prefetch_deny

Re:Awsome by Given+M.+Sur · 2005-03-31 02:49 · Score: 2, Funny

This looks like it will be a really useful resource. Are there any other examples of the best way to do this? For other browsers.

"Google uses a special prefetching feature in Firefox and Mozilla web browsers to provide this functionality, so results prefetching is not available in Internet Explorer or other web browsers."

Now, is it really easier to post a question and wait for an answer than to just read the article?

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nil

Result, not results, and then still not always by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-31 02:50 · Score: 5, Informative

Only when google is confident that the top result is the one you want - the one link that the vast majority of people actually click - do they include the prefetch link for that one resource. Go and try it for yourself, and look for prefetch in the source. For the vast majority of searches, it isn't there. Only when looking for the authoritive resource (such as stanford.edu for "stanford") is the prefetch link actually there.

Sure, their metrics might be off at times, but the way this has been implemented is definitely a good way, and will be very helpful for users of all browsers implementing prefetching (which currently is gecko-based only afaik, but could easily enough include opera and safari and such as well in the near future).

How to turn it off yourself by dave7e9q · 2005-03-31 02:50 · Score: 5, Informative

Type about:config ... then scroll down to network.prefetch-next ... double click it to "false" ... all done.

PS... by argent · 2005-03-31 02:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

PS: Google on "google triangle" and you'll see why they picked this page to prefetch...

Though I'd like them to prefetch the "next search page" as well... at least, that would tend to speed up *my* googling. I'm probably atypical, though, if they don't do it...

Re:PS... by elgaard · 2005-03-31 03:50 · Score: 3, Informative

Isn't it simpler to set your google preferences to do that?

http://www.google.ca/preferences?hl=en
Re:PS... by argent · 2005-03-31 04:20 · Score: 2, Funny

Ditto. Sometimes you actually learn something from slashdot... :)

Re:But usually the top links on google by Anita+Coney · 2005-03-31 02:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

I agree with you. What's worse is sometimes the first several sites are all the SAME worthless pages but with different URLs.

I also like your idea of voting too. Every time you click on a site after searching Google you should have an opportunity to rate its relevance. That'd get rid of a lot of crap quite quickly

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If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.

This is great! by Slashcrap · 2005-03-31 02:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

Unless :

You have an ADSL line with a really stingy cap (for instance BT in the UK offer a cheap service with a 1GB/month cap). I'm sure their customers will be happy about downloading pages they won't read.

You're a web admin that pays a lot for bandwith. I bet they'll be really happy that lots of people will be downloading their pages without ever looking at them.

You're at work surfing through a proxy that does filtering / logging and there are some dubious sites that get pre-fetched for you. Enjoy getting sacked for something you didn't do!

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm struggling to see any drawbacks to this great new technology!

Re:This is great! by n0-0p · 2005-03-31 03:36 · Score: 2, Informative

The above post could only be considered insightful if you didn't read the article. If you look at how Google implemented this feature you'll see that, with a possible rare exception of the first point on certain searches, none of these arguments apply.

Slashdotting a website by proxy??? by Leadhyena · 2005-03-31 02:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

This could turn a google-bomb into an effective DDOS attack... have all kind of blogs set up a google-bomb against a website and link to an image off of the page. Then, when that link hits the top it gets hit automatically, as well as with every other blog (that scales the pagerank for pointing to the popular hit) that puts that picture up. Since they all get prefetched, the images will load up and that page will get nailed by 100x requests. Google will end up shutting this service down before long because of similar abuses.

RE: uhoh... by fshalor · 2005-03-31 03:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

So , that means if I *accidentidly* search for a pron related topic, or pron is definatly in the top responses from google, It gets downloaded without me doing anything?

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-=fshalor ::this post not spellchecked. move along::

Re:They turn it off for you. by otisaardvark · 2005-03-31 03:02 · Score: 3, Informative

Um, if you read the Mozilla Prefetch FAQ, you'll learn that this only happens when you are not using bandwidth for something else initiated by the current Mozilla application. Worry :-)

Trouble at work, trouble with law by rhh · 2005-03-31 03:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

Not only could this get you in trouble by inadvertently downloading porn at work, but you could download even more incriminating things.

Say for example you were searching for info on that convicted sex offender that moved into your neighborhood or searching for news on terrorist attacks. Prefetching could potentially have your computer downloading things you wouldn't otherwise download and that could get you in real trouble.

Re:Trouble at work, trouble with law by Rommel · 2005-03-31 03:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is just another reason the current practice of criminalizing the possession of knowledge is crazy.

It should be off by default.... by jonr · 2005-03-31 03:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

I think it would make more sense if network.prefetch-next would be set to false by default. Then gearheads could turn it on if they wanted.

Re:Links by anethema · 2005-03-31 03:09 · Score: 2, Informative

Even if it WERE mozilla, rather than just bugzilla as mentioned above..

Install tabbrowser extensions (TBE), and right click your quicklaunch type link at the top of firefox(which we all know we all have right? :D)...click tab settings..and make it always block referer. Or you can just make TBE do it for every site, though i dont.

TBE and adblock make browsing in firefox about a thousand times better. Why firefox doesnt have good tab behavior in the first place is beyond me.

With TBE closing a tab doesnt just kick me to the last tab, goes to last selected. Also middle clicking links from within pages keeps proper sorting in TBE and colour codes it to show you whats going on.

You can drag tabs around and a million other little features that are missing from the default tab behavior. Good stuff.

--

It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

Re:But usually the top links on google by md27 · 2005-03-31 03:10 · Score: 5, Informative

You do have this chance to vote, if you find a useful page clicking the "More like this" link, not only gives you pages tuned closer to that page, but it also tells Google that's what you wanted to see when you searched in the first place.

Re:Working? by tfountain · 2005-03-31 03:11 · Score: 2, Informative

There's a Firefox plug called LiveHTTPHeaders which will show the requests/responses the browser is getting. Using this I can see that the browser only loads the HTML page for the prefetched page, not any associated images/javascript files etc. Because of this you'll only notice a difference if your browser caches the HTML file, and even then the difference in loading time is likely to be minimal.

Re:But usually the top links on google by LoverOfJoy · 2005-03-31 03:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

Or it'd get a lot of spammers voting their crap in quite quickly

Even More Problems by Valdrax · 2005-03-31 03:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

Forget the Feds, you're much more likely to get nailed by your IT department for this. I wonder if a user who was unaware of this feature and got fired thanks to links loaded by it could sue the Mozilla Foundation. I can just see some malicious little asshole putting hidden (via color) links in their webpages that download utterly offensive crap just to see if they can get someone fired. I especially expect this sort of thing from the same sort of Slashdot trolls who posted that infinite pop-up of gay porn thing in the Firefox Hacks story.

I also expect that this will be abused by unscrupulous websites who want to run up their ad revenue by having people preload a page full of ads. Many people have already expressed concerns for those who have slow connections or who do not have unlimited access. This could also be used by spammers to verify people who are smart enough to have web-bugs disabled via cookie and image blocking on emails but who don't know about preloading if the Thunderbird people enable this in email (which would be foolish beyond belief).

I just think this concept is a horrible idea.

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Re:Even More Problems by roca · 2005-03-31 08:48 · Score: 2, Informative

> I also expect that this will be abused by
> unscrupulous websites who want to run up their ad
> revenue by having people preload a page full of
> ads.

They can already do this using hidden IFRAMEs, and it works on all browsers. Nothing new here, move along.

Google/Firefox "Synergy" by MongoMike · 2005-03-31 03:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

I wrote up a blog post describing how Google and Firefox are helping each other out.

The link prefetching stuff that Google's using? It was developed by a Mozilla programmer employed by Google. Interesting times!

http://www.jall.org/blog/2005/03/31/googlefirefox- cooperation-on-link-prefetching/

Or for more predictions on the Firefox/Google future in general:
http://www.jall.org/blog/2005/03/19/googles-future -plans/

google tracks clicks sometimes by slashkitty · 2005-03-31 03:28 · Score: 4, Informative

They do put in click tracking links sometimes.

For example if you search for: ~hot

You'll get the tracking links. I think it's random on many searches, but on ~ searches, they always have it.

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-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.

Re:google tracks clicks sometimes by wheany · 2005-03-31 04:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

What does that tilde mean?
Re:google tracks clicks sometimes by red+tiger · 2005-03-31 05:54 · Score: 5, Informative

Actually the tilde-feature is properly documented.

It is called synonym search and it really does some dictinary lookup, as it doesn't search for just the term entered but also its synonyms.

Seems quite useful to me... To be honest, I had never heard of it before I read this thread here :)

Re:Nice by KFury · 2005-03-31 03:34 · Score: 3, Informative

Now every 56ker is going to move away from google.

Why?

Lie the article says, Moz/FFX only uses bandwidth you're not already using, so it won't make any other operation slower, and if you're on a slow connection then prefetching a page saves you even more time than if you're on a fast one. What's the use case that would have you moving to the door?

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Kevin Fox

Re:Nice by Anonymous Coward · 2005-03-31 03:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

Lie the article says, Moz/FFX only uses bandwidth you're not already using

no, it only uses bandwith _itself_ is not using.

so it won't make any other operation slower

yes, it can make everything else slower (IM, mail, P2P, updates, etc.)

What's the use case that would have you moving to the door?

slow connection, ISPs with bandwith cap, not wanting unwanted unvisited sites in your cache,

But, you can turn it off in FF, but unfortunately not on a per site basis

Re:another embrace and extend by n0-0p · 2005-03-31 03:49 · Score: 2, Informative

This has been in Mozilla for almost four years and it doesn't violate any standards. look at the "Is link prefetching standards compliant" item in http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/Link_Prefet ching_FAQ.html.

tracking clicks by lixlpixel · 2005-03-31 04:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

you could do that with javascript.
just include an onClick XMLHttpRequest script which sends the coordinates of the cursor when the user clicks on a result.
Since the google page looks pretty similar on every browser, the y-coordinate should (could) tell you on which result the user clicked...

pretty hackish - but without any redirect and/or visible to the user.

Another concern by DaveJay · 2005-03-31 07:16 · Score: 3, Informative

Other people here have already discussed the "you'll get in trouble from work/authorities for prefetching things on to your computer you don't even know you're loading" deal, so I won't touch that. They've also discussed the "You'll use more bandwidth" thing.

Here's my complaint, from an entirely different direction: two years from now, is every default installation of Mozilla and/or Firefox going to require me to change a laundry list of preferences in order to avoid features I don't want?

I mean, go ahead and put these features in, but don't activate them automatically: do what Opera does (asks if the user wants to activate a feature) or just leave them off by default, and add a menu option to turn it on.

Having these things turned on by default is going to be an inconvenience going forward, and smacks a bit of elitist "we know what's better for your web browsing experience than you do" attitude, you know what I mean?

At this point, I'd be thrilled with setting optional parameters like this to 'off' by default, and updating the default installation home page (visible on first execution of the app) to a page listing "Great optional features", along with buttons to turn them on and a quick note on how to turn them back off if desired.

Vulnerabilities and prefetching? by Chris+Kamel · 2005-03-31 08:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

So what happens if you prefetch a page that stresses some vulnerability in the browser? Does it get to run even though you didn't really even browse to the page....

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great for slashdot? by danharan · 2005-03-31 09:26 · Score: 2, Funny

We could do set this on /., so when you click on a discussion, it automatically pre-fetches the article!

Uhmm... actually, never mind

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Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"

Images too? by Advised+Wang · 2005-03-31 09:45 · Score: 2, Interesting

Does prefetching only fetch the html, or the images too? If no images are loaded the bandwith is minimal, no kiddy porn violation will exist, and you will not have downloaded anything that could *really* get you fired.

Security 101 by ArtStone · 2005-03-31 16:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

One of the first things taught in Computer Security is that you should not enable features or services unless there is a need for them and justify why there is a need to assume the risks inherent in turning that feature on.

As others have pointed out, pre-fetching (especially now that the /. world knows about it) has many implications for virus propogation, affiliate program click fraud, distortion of traffic measurements, employee disciplinary legal issues...

For the Foxfire folks to have enabled this feature by default - with no reasonable preference/options interface for the non-geek user and nothing in the browser help (go to Help and search on "Prefetch") to document the functionality - this plays enormously into the hands of those who want to label FireFox (and more generally open source) as being insecure, reckless, and not appropriate in the corporate environment.

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