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CDN Optimizing HTML On the Fly
Caerdwyn writes "Cotendo, which is a content distribution network, has taken to altering HTML as it passes through their CDN to optimize web pages for faster rendering. This is essentially a repackaging of the Apache mod mod_pagespeed (from Google), with the critical difference being that the rewriting of HTML occurs inline rather than at the web server. We all know that well-written HTML can result in much better rendering of whatever your content is; the questions are 'Will this automatic rewriting cause other problems, i.e. browser quirks?' and 'Assuming that only the web pages of Cotendo's customers are altered, are there nonetheless potential legal troubles with someone rewriting HTML before delivery to a browser?'"
the questions are 'Will this automatic rewriting cause other problems, i.e. browser quirks?' and 'Assuming that only the web pages of Cotendo's customers are altered, are there nonetheless potential legal troubles with someone rewriting HTML before delivery to a browser?'
I couldn't give a rat's ass about legal troubles. Slashdot is still a tech forum, right?
There are LOADS of much more interesting questions to ponder, such as: what is exactly the speed improvement? And does it work for Javascript and CSS too? And wouldn't it be much better to work on images instead? Or is that too computationally intensive? What kind of algorithm do they use? In what language is it implemented? Et cetera. Legal troubles shmegal smougles.
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If you voluntarily upload your web site to a CDN that tells you it is going to optimise your code, what legal issues could there be? The arrangement is entirely mutually consensual. If you don't want your site optimised, then don't use that CDN.
This seems like an ad for Contendo disguised as an inflammatory post.
Any webmaster worth their salt is using a variety of tools to improve loading speed - minification of html/css/js, combining scripts, CSS optimization, js packing, compressing PNGs with better tools and using CSS sprites.
I use W3 Total Cache for two of my blogs and the speed increase is substantial.
While we are at it, I wish developers would think it through before using JQuery for trivial stuff. Loading JQuery + bunch of plugins to do simple (and I mean simple) fades or form validations is pointless. Here's an example of what I mean.
So if they're doing this transparently, it's all th better.
What's the difference between me configuring my servers to optimize our sites on our front-end proxies, and having our CDN doing it on their front-end proxies?
I think you missed that this is a service Cotendo provides to its paying customers.
Now, if Cotendo was doing this without their customers' permission, then your objection might have some kind of relevance. I can't find anything to indicate that this is the case though, and it seems like a dumb and stupid business move if it is.
The new Page Speed service offered by Cotendo will be part of its proprietary new performance application platform Cloudlet(TM), which is able to execute both open source and any proprietary code. Cotendo's new platform is in production with select customers and partners, which will be announced soon.
This makes it sound like it may actually be optimising the output from applications running on their own servers, rather than as a proxy altering content sent from the customer's servers.