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Google To Host Ajax Libraries
ruphus13 writes "So, hosting and managing a ton of Ajax calls, even when working with mootools, dojo or scriptaculous, can be quite cumbersome, especially as they get updated, along with your code. In addition, several sites now use these libraries, and the end-user has to download the library each time. Google now will provide hosted versions of these libraries, so users can simply reference Google's hosted version. From the article, 'The thing is, what if multiple sites are using Prototype 1.6? Because browsers cache files according to their URL, there is no way for your browser to realize that it is downloading the same file multiple times. And thus, if you visit 30 sites that use Prototype, then your browser will download prototype.js 30 times.
Today, Google announced a partial solution to this problem that seems obvious in retrospect: Google is now offering the "Google Ajax Libraries API," which allows sites to download five well-known Ajax libraries (Dojo, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Mootools, and jQuery) from Google. This will only work if many sites decide to use Google's copies of the JavaScript libraries; if only one site does so, then there will be no real speed improvement.
There is, of course, something of a privacy violation here, in that Google will now be able to keep track of which users are entering various non-Google Web pages.' Will users adopt this, or is it easy enough to simply host an additional file?"
As a developer, privacy of my users is of paramount importance. I have grown increasingly concerned with Google's apparently incessant need to pry into my searches and my browsing habits. Where once I was a major Google supporter, I have trimmed my use of their service back from email and toolbars to simple searches and now even won't use their service at all if I am searching for anything that may be misconstrued at some point by guys in dark suits with plastic ID badges. The last thing I am going to do as a developer is force my users into a situation where they can feed the Google Logging Engine.
public void karmaWhore(String url){addSlashdotComment(fetchContent(url));}
In theory, cache hits wouldn't give Google an information at all. So when the api works the way it is supposed to, it doesn't reveal anything.
Someone could even put up a site called googlenoise.com or whatever, with the sole purpose of loading the useful versions of the library into the cache from the same place.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Additionally, if you're using compression, it is likely that one large file will compress more effectively than a collection of smaller files. (You *are* using compression, aren't you?)
You have to consider that Google is a for-profit business and hosting these files represents a bandwidth cost and a maintainence cost for them.
The bandwidth cost should be small since Google uses these libraries already and the whole idea is to improve browser caching. The maintenance cost of hosting static content shouldn't be that high, either. I mean, really.
Since the labor, hardware, and bandwidth costs all seem to be low, Google wouldn't be under pressure to make the investment pay. Google hosts lots of things that don't benefit them directly and from which they gain no real advantage except image.. Despite being a data-mining machine, Google does a lot of truly altruistic stuff.
Put identity in the browser.
Google Analytics is invaluable for small business. AWStats and others cannot compete on ease of use and accuracy. By blocking the domain in your hosts file, you aren't sticking it to Google, you are hurting the Web sites that you visit. I'm employed by a small newspaper and we use Google Analytics in order to see where our readers are going and how we can improve the experience for you. Google already has this information through AdSense, or do you have that blocked too? Again you're hurting small business.
You may refuse to give them your data, but if I had the ability, Apache would refuse to give you my data until you eased off on the attitude.
When you visit a website, the site owner is well within their rights to record that visit. To assert otherwise is an extremist view that needs popular and legislative buy-in before it can in any way be validated. The negotiation is between Google and website owners.
If you want to think of your HTTP requests as your data, then you'd probably best get off the Internet entirely. No one is every going to pay you for it.
Also:
Red herring. No one says that. No one even thinks about that. Frankly there are far more important privacy concerns out there than the collection of HTTP data.