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Google Announces Google CDN

leetrout writes "Google has introduced their Page Speed Service which 'is the latest tool in Google's arsenal to help speed up the web. When you sign up and point your site's DNS entry to Google, they'll enable the tool which will fetch your content from your servers, rewrite your webpages, and serve them up from Google's own servers around the world.'"

205 comments

  1. all your base... by jank1887 · · Score: 0

    at least when they finish taking over the world we'll be able to find things on the internet REALLY FAST.

    1. Re:all your base... by queen+of+everything · · Score: 3, Funny

      how long until we just rename it to the "googlenet"?

      --
      "Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it." -Albert Einstein
    2. Re:all your base... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      soon... very soon.

    3. Re:all your base... by DevConcepts · · Score: 1

      Better than Skynet or is it the same thing?

    4. Re:all your base... by rbrausse · · Score: 1

      yesterday we read about Akamai, apparently origin of 15-30% of the web traffic. Google's service seems to be similar to Akamai's offering, but free of cost.

      Tomorrow Akamai, the day after tomorrow the world?

    5. Re:all your base... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you read the article, it says they're going to charge for this.

    6. Re:all your base... by Anrego · · Score: 1

      For now...

      Google says that Page Speed Service will be offered for free to a limited set of testers right now. Eventually, they will charge for it, and pricing will be “competitive”.

      Also is there any sites left that are static? Could maybe be useful if you get a lot of traffic and seperate out static stuff (images, scripts, css, whatever) and dynamic stuff into two domains .. but for most of the internet?

    7. Re:all your base... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I for one welcome our future mind-state virtualization host overlords.

    8. Re:all your base... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      virtualization and cloud computing have very little to do with each other. google does not use virtualization for their cloud computing.

    9. Re:all your base... by Xacid · · Score: 0

      Don't blame him - Hitler made him do it.

    10. Re:all your base... by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Funny

      Would that make a Wifi access point a G-spot? I can see the support calls "try pinging your G-spot"

    11. Re:all your base... by gmueckl · · Score: 1

      Most of the content I see is quasi-static. The actual page content does not change often enough to warrant a complete page regeneration on each request. Complete page generation for each request is really only justified if there are either too many pages to write them all to a static cache at the same time or if the pages are very dynamic (like very active forum threads or other dynamic data that needs to be delivered "fresh").

      --
      http://www.moonlight3d.eu/
    12. Re:all your base... by robmv · · Score: 1

      It is not free of cost, it is free for testing and prices will be announced later

    13. Re:all your base... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget the finger protocol.

    14. Re:all your base... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 0

      What I don't see is any benefit to the user in living in Google's little padded cell, being fed premasticated pap. All of the benefits seem to flow Google's way, in terms of both ad revenue and the ability to construct an ever more comprehensive database of users' interests, inevitably tied to a unique ID.

      What could possibly go wrong?

    15. Re:all your base... by acoustix · · Score: 1

      I would do a WHOIS first. You can't be too careful these days.

      --
      "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
    16. Re:all your base... by Chrisq · · Score: 0

      I would do a WHOIS first. You can't be too careful these days.

      And watch out fro trojans ...

    17. Re:all your base... by TheCRAIGGERS · · Score: 1

      If what you say is correct, then nobody will use it.

      But somehow I have trouble believing that the customer would get nothing out of this. Even if it's only faster delivery to an end user , that is a very real and very tangible thing.

    18. Re:all your base... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A common technique is to serve static content from one server, and have that server proxy requests for dynamic content to another server. Or vice-versa. Obviously this makes more sense for a really high-volume site, with lots of static content (images and the like) but also plenty of dynamic content too. Page Speed could work well in that circumstance.

      Seems like pretty specific use case, though.

    19. Re:all your base... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AppEngine's Java platform offers a virtualized virtual machine. It may not be virtualization in the sense that you install an OS and treat it like a server, but it's still virtualization.

    20. Re:all your base... by afidel · · Score: 2

      And while Google has quite a few strategically placed datacenters around the world it's hard to get closer to the user than Akamai which has servers in probably 85% of the worlds large POP's.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    21. Re:all your base... by somersault · · Score: 2

      I'd be okay with giving to give anyone who cares to ask a comprehensive list of my interests. Unfortunately for Google and advertisers, they only get my interests, not the ad revenue.

      Apple is the one who has the little padded cells. Google have improved the internet, and probably even the whole tech industry the most out of any company in the last decade. There are a whole lot of benefits that have come our way - easily the best search since 1998, gigabytes of free inbox space, free online office suite capabilities, a popular and open mobile OS etc. A lot more benefits than Apple have provided. They made MP3 players popular, and then capacitive touch phones with swooshy interfaces.. that's about it. Microsoft have given us.. well, I can't think of anything to be honest.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    22. Re:all your base... by milkmage · · Score: 1

      T-1000 (beta)

    23. Re:all your base... by Dishevel · · Score: 1

      how long until we just rename it to the "googlenet"?

      That's not what you call it now?

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    24. Re:all your base... by icebraining · · Score: 1

      I'd say that traffic is more static than ever. With more and more websites using JS to update the content - instead of doing a full page request - the amount of dynamic data is very small.

      In fact, with proper caching (and HTML5 has some nice features for that), current webpages can actually be faster on dialup, by transferring 2KB of a JSON list instead of a 300KB HTML page for each update.

    25. Re:all your base... by Enderandrew · · Score: 2

      You say the benefits only go one way, but aren't the users receiving more and more free services?

      If you don't like the trade-off of seeing ads for those free services, you don't use them. How is this arrangement deceptive or evil? Just because they're big doesn't mean they're some nasty conspiracy.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    26. Re:all your base... by cjcela · · Score: 2

      Well, the problem is that even if you choose not to use their services, others will, and the general state of things is shifted more and more towards the world depending on 3 or 4 companies. So Google owning most of the world data and Internet services it is not necessarily evil now, but it will certainly narrow the options for everybody in the future.

    27. Re:all your base... by Rival · · Score: 1

      yesterday we read about Akamai, apparently origin of 15-30% of the web traffic. Google's service seems to be similar to Akamai's offering, but free of cost.

      Tomorrow Akamai, the day after tomorrow the world?

      My thoughts exactly. Akamai will be pretty threatened by this, but I'm not sure what they can do about it other than offer superior service.

      I wonder if Google will try to buy them out, though -- Akamai has lost about half of its stock value over the past three quarters for some reason.

      Such a move would definitely cause alarm, though. I personally would not feel comfortable concentrating so much of the internet in one company. Single points of failure are bad.

    28. Re:all your base... by perryizgr8 · · Score: 1

      actually it does.

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
    29. Re:all your base... by Enderandrew · · Score: 2

      Except in the areas that putting data together enables humans to do more with the data.

      And Google has been pretty good about trying to make data more accessible to everyone on the planet. Again, not very evil.

      Unless you refer only to your private data, and again Google is one of the rare companies that doesn't have private data out to anyone. AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. do hand your private data out to other people. When Google makes inroads into their markets, they're actually taking market share away from companies who do try to lock you into proprietary systems and sell your data.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    30. Re:all your base... by s73v3r · · Score: 1

      Well, the problem is that even if you choose not to use their services, others will

      So you don't get to feel part of the IN crowd?

    31. Re:all your base... by bernywork · · Score: 1

      Yeah...

      Google gets free hosting / bandwidth from most of the ISPs in the world because they want to reduce their bandwidth bill. Google container? What did you think they did with that tech?

      95% of people watch 5% of the content... THAT will come from the container....

      So if Google hosts your data there, then there is a good possibility you will be just as close if not closer than Akamai. With the increases in CPU / HDD space, why not?

      --
      Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
    32. Re:all your base... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I suspect Akamai will be nervous, but ultimately isn't trying to compete in the same space. Google will probably never be able to get the White House, or Apple, or Microsoft as customers, for instance, and probably isn't very interested in doing so, whereas Akamai makes a point of targeting the biggest potential customers it can find. Google has shown little desire to get into spaces with customers who demand extremely high-touch support, and Akamai is extremely unlikely to go after the small fry Google will target, unless one of Akamai's partners or resellers decides they can handle it.

      Akamai is always going to be the premium product -- they will do whatever it takes to stay years ahead of the competition in terms of technology, and their ability to have servers nearly everywhere is very hard to replicate because it requires good business relationships with giant telcos and tiny ISPs in the middle of nowhere. Also, a lot of companies and government agencies are scared of Google -- will it compete with them, or screw up security the way it screws up privacy? Akamai is neutral. It is also, weirdly, less of a black box (it gets accused of being secretive, but is probably more willing than Google is to document its services in the detail fussy customers will want), and is a lot more willing to negotiate (e.g. if you pay enough, Akamai will build nearly any custom product you want, in a way Google hasn't really shown any interest in).

      Could Google buy Akamai? Sure, everyone has their price, but they'd probably have to offer several hundred dollars a share for it. They both hire from the same set of people. As long as they kept the peace between the two radically different business models, it would work out okay culturally. The FTC would totally have kittens over the idea, though.

    33. Re:all your base... by RoFLKOPTr · · Score: 1

      Microsoft have given us.. well, I can't think of anything to be honest.

      How about the most popular operating system in the world? The most popular office suite in the world? A PC UI that doesn't suck ass (yes, I'm implying that OS X is ugly and unusable)? The best OS for PDAs (by today's standard, Windows Mobile sucks, but it was the best back in the day). In later years, they revolutionized console gaming with the Xbox and the first major online console gaming service. And now we have Windows Phone 7 and the Metro UI which is basically an orgasm shooting directly into your optic nerves via theoretical syringes. And, perhaps most importantly, they gave all the Linux wannabes something to sling shit at.

      Call me a shill or whatever it is you guys call people these days. Microsoft is not a company I adore, but they deserve some respect for how they have advanced personal computing over the last 30-odd years. If it wasn't for ol' Willy Gates and Paul Allen I don't think we would be even close to where we're at today.

    34. Re:all your base... by somersault · · Score: 1

      Windows and Office were around before 1998.

      Actually, I'll agree that Windows Mobile was the best for a while, I used to use it long before iOS came out, and I stuck with it until Android came along. They just let it stagnate though because that's what MS do when they're the only game in town.

      Xbox may have done online gaming, but I hardly consider that "revolutionary" considering I'd already been gaming online for years before it. Evolutionary perhaps, but not revolutionary. Consoles such as the Dreamcast and PS2 had online gaming too.

      We'd be a lot further ahead without Windows' effective monopoly on the OS market. It's taken a shift to mobile computing to break the stranglehold and start some innovation again.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    35. Re:all your base... by RoFLKOPTr · · Score: 1

      Windows and Office were around before 1998.

      What makes 1998 relevant?

      Actually, I'll agree that Windows Mobile was the best for a while, I used to use it long before iOS came out, and I stuck with it until Android came along. They just let it stagnate though because that's what MS do when they're the only game in town.

      Same, and true. My last phone before my Droid X was a Samsung Omnia. WM6.1 was really showing its age at that point and I was ready to chuck my phone at the wall on several occasions.

      Xbox may have done online gaming, but I hardly consider that "revolutionary" considering I'd already been gaming online for years before it. Evolutionary perhaps, but not revolutionary. Consoles such as the Dreamcast and PS2 had online gaming too.

      Well perhaps "revolutionary" is too markety and buzzwordy but I was unaware of Dreamcast's online capabilities, and the PS2 required an additional modem part and not many games actually supported real online gameplay. Xbox Live was revolutionary in that it provided a framework that any game could use to provide online play and in which any gamer could use a single login and a single monthly fee to facilitate online play with any game on the console. There wasn't even anything like that (that was particularly successful) for the PC until Steam came around a full year after the Xbox was released.

      We'd be a lot further ahead without Windows' effective monopoly on the OS market. It's taken a shift to mobile computing to break the stranglehold and start some innovation again.

      There isn't a monopoly when there's competition. Microsoft is ruthless, but there has always been competition, and it's quite visible in various Windows and Macintosh releases. Just compare their releases and you'll see them taking ideas from each other over the years. Don't blame Microsoft just because nobody else had the drive to get their own new OS released. It would have been extremely difficult, but if there ever was something with enough innovation to stir up new competition, that would have happened.

    36. Re:all your base... by somersault · · Score: 1

      Well, I was talking about 1998, maybe I didn't make it all that obvious though:

      There are a whole lot of benefits that have come our way - easily the best search since 1998

      1998 was when Google came out, and since then they've done a lot more for the tech world than Apple and MS was my point. 1998 also happens to be the year when I switched to using PCs rather than Macs and Amigas.

      Since the desktop space is so established, "innovation" is not enough to switch people over - unless they are not tied down in any way by established Windows only applications. But basically hardly anyone is like that. Home users are tied to their games, business users are tied to office and design applications, etc. Any change of OS needs to be gradual and compatible. WINE and virtualisation are helping a lot with that now, but the results still aren't perfect.

      The way I see it is that things started opening up when Firefox came along and put a stop to the "this site requires IE6" garbage. Having websites built on actual standards has allowed us to develop all kinds of cool cross-platform stuff, and for those of us that are happy to game on consoles that means we can use any OS we want now. MS were quite clever to get into the console space really - they must have seen this coming.

      --
      which is totally what she said
  2. But what about non-static pages? by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, it rewrites my HTML, but what about my PHP (Perl, Python, your_scripting_language_here)?

    --


    "Lame" - Galaxar
    1. Re:But what about non-static pages? by trum4n · · Score: 1, Interesting

      It more than likely just optimizes known bad code. I would guess it "fixes" pages made with shitty software like Microsoft Frontpage.

    2. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Anrego · · Score: 1

      Largely my first thought. Not much of the web is static these days. Most people who just want "a basic page with some info on it" unfortunately just use facebook now. Even really simple pages tend to have _some_ dynamic widget on them that relies on server side activity.

      May be useful if one seperated out static and dynamic content into seperate domains.. but for anything short of large scale this is a hassle.

    3. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BUT "your_scripting_language_there" only outputs HTML.
      Still, its not as if though I'd handle all my internet to google...

    4. Re:But what about non-static pages? by slim · · Score: 1

      Like any other proxy, no doubt it will heed the cache-control HTTP headers.

    5. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Whalou · · Score: 0

      It will be transformed into Go.

      --
      English is not this .sig mother tongue...
    6. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless I've missed some new web 3.0 trend, PHP etc. create HTML which is then send to the users.

    7. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just a guess, but I think it does everything pagespeed firebug plugin does/complains about:

      Optimizes the images
      Minifies the HTML
      Minifies the JS
      Minifies the CSS
      Combines all JS into a single file.
      Combines all CSS into a single file.
      Removes unused CSS rules.
      Rewrites inefficient selectors ".outgoing a" or "ol li a.someclass".
      Moves any stray CSS to the head of the page, to prevent "page flashing."
      Moves any JS that can be moved to the bottom of the page to the bottom of the page, as when JS is encountered all rendering stops, so moving it to the bottom allows the HTML to render faster.
      Sets far futures expiration headers on static content (CSS, JS, images, fav icon)
      Eliminates E-Tags (or properly sets them) in the header.
      Provides CDN service (Content Delivery Network).

    8. Re:But what about non-static pages? by definate · · Score: 1

      Does it sanitize input?

      How does it handle dynamic code? Eg, when does it know to send you a cached copy, and when to send you a fresh one.

      This sounds similar to a start-up I heard about a while ago, can't remember the name though. Either way, if they implement this well, this could be an awesome service.

      --
      This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    9. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Baloroth · · Score: 1

      Judging for most of Google's pages, they're more likely to ask "static pages? What're those and who still uses them?"

      I recently discovered that Google actually has a subdomain for their static content (static.google.com, I believe), since they use so little of it. Somehow, I think Google is probably expecting most pages to be non-static.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    10. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Architect_sasyr · · Score: 1

      Wasn't that the company pretty recently who said they did this... that they "accidentally" made a web accelerator when they were doing some security work? Has google bought them out or are they ripping them off. Maybe I read it on the sophos naked security feeds, but I can't find it.

      --
      Me failed English...
      FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
    11. Re:But what about non-static pages? by definate · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that sounds like it!

      Can't remember the name though.

      --
      This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    12. Re:But what about non-static pages? by jmrives · · Score: 1

      Google provides a test page where you can enter a URL and it will process the page and report on expected improvements. The test takes awhile -- depending on the queue. I have submitted a heavy Javascript-ed page to satisfy my own curiosity. Perhaps, you should do the same for PHP et al.

    13. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      What about non-static pages? Do you expect Google to magically host your entire site, in its proper environment?

      No - you send out the correct headers in response to queries about changes to the page - and if the content in your "non-static" page hasn't actually changed, you tell Google that (or hell, any client that is asking) and it serves up its cached copy. Even most dynamic pages wont change every second, so why run the page code for each request?

    14. Re:But what about non-static pages? by curunir · · Score: 1

      Some of the things on your list can't be done automatically without possibly causing problems.

      You can't rewrite inefficient selectors or remove CSS rules because classes can be applied and DOM elements inserted dynamically in JavaScript. Unless you're going to do fairly complex analysis of the JavaScript on the page to determine that it's not changing classes on DOM elements or adding/removing to/from the DOM.

      You also can't easily move JavaScript to the bottom of the page without possibly breaking things. There's a reason rendering stops when it hits JavaScript code...it's because document.write can introduce HTML code that needs to be added at the point the script executes. You can check whether a script uses document.write directly, but JavaScript is dynamic enough to give you quite a few ways of invoking that function (eval, document["write"], etc.) You could run it through a browser to determine if document.write ever gets called, but even if that passed, there's no way to ensure that the JavaScript isn't browser specific.

      You can recommend those steps to developers because they can ensure that those rare occurrences aren't happening, but you can't apply them automatically without at least telling developers so they can add some HTTP header or other means for opting out of that functionality.

      --
      "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
    15. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Google uses a subdomain because they share so much static content across their subdomains (mail... plus... docs... etc etc), so sharing the static content speeds up those subdomains due to client side caching.

    16. Re:But what about non-static pages? by icebraining · · Score: 2

      Actually, any site benefits from using a separate domain - browsers limit the number of connections per domain, so by using two you can speed up the site considerably.

      http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/rtt.html#ParallelizeDownloads

    17. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Beuno · · Score: 1

      After spending a lot of time benchmarking, this only holds true on http. On https, the overhead of the SSL negotiation kills what you gain very quickly.

    18. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hmmm really http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110728_5D_5ca241ba272a131e5a4817437eef1ad1/
      that is a great improvement.

    19. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dynamic sites often have static parts where a lot of speed improvements can happen: CSS compaction and optimization, image compression, Javascript optimization, etc.

    20. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The language used does not matter. The way it works is it fetches your site, then does a lot of analysis/rewriting on the output, and then serves the optimized version to the client. Most likely using something like mod_pagespeed: http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/module.html

      Wonder how the big companies that do this already feel: blaze.io, aptimize, strangeloop.

      It can be very cool though, not sure on Google's implementation, but some of these will actually auto sprite -- take 10 or so distinct images, join them up into a single one, and then update css so it works. So the end user only has to download one image. It can break your site, but works for 80 to 90 percent of them.

      Can see the type of fixes you would get by running your site through GTmetrix - http://gtmetrix.com/ and look at Pagespeed results.

    21. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Mr.+DOS · · Score: 2

      Serving static content from a subdomain or just another domain (e.g., Facebook's fbcdn.net) can also improve the load times because the browser won't have any cookies associated with that domain, and therefore won't lose time sending a pile of irrelevant content along with every HTTP request.

    22. Re:But what about non-static pages? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not much of the web is static these days.

      Actually, almost all of it is, still.

      Images: static. Videos: static. Big blob of CSS downloaded with the page: static. Big blob of javascript downloaded by the page: also static. Sure, there is some non-static HTML, but the job of that is to arrange a bunch of much larger static objects things on a page.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    23. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Xenophon+Fenderson, · · Score: 1

      I've always wondered why I have to OK site.com, sitecdn.com, images-site.com, ssl-images-site.com, etc. in NoScript. What an ugly hack.

      --
      I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
    24. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      need

    25. Re:But what about non-static pages? by xnpu · · Score: 1

      If it's recommended to work around this browser limit, why is the limit there in the first place? What's the trade off here?

    26. Re:But what about non-static pages? by somejeff · · Score: 1

      Google takes "your_scripting_language_here" source code, rewrites it, and serves it up with a side dish of Error 402: FTFY

    27. Re:But what about non-static pages? by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Read the link, it explains it better than I could.

    28. Re:But what about non-static pages? by jesseck · · Score: 1

      Somehow, I think Google is probably expecting most pages to be non-static.

      You may be right- but Google crawls the web daily, and would be a good judge (or at least a decent one) of which content changes, and how often.

    29. Re:But what about non-static pages? by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      Perl and php, etc still serve html to people

    30. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For some sites, the "speed improvement" is actually in negative and hence NOT applicable to all websites: link

    31. Re:But what about non-static pages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does your PHP create? Most of mine outputs HTML.

    32. Re:But what about non-static pages? by agm · · Score: 1

      BUT "your_scripting_language_there" only outputs HTML.

      Not necessarily. It you're using a framework like ExtJS, then the server most likely fishes up JSON or XML which is parsed by the Javascript on the browser and the DOM in manipulated directly. I can't see Google doing anything to speed that up.

    33. Re:But what about non-static pages? by slim · · Score: 1
  3. And insert ads by coinreturn · · Score: 2

    I presume they'll be inserting ads into your website!

    1. Re:And insert ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I presume they'll be inserting ads into your website!

      Well it's a limited trial which will turn into a paid service, I suspect they won't alter the appearance and functionality for paying customers. However if they had an ad supported version for free that might also be helpful.

    2. Re:And insert ads by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      Half the pages already have google ads inserted into them. They are just eliminating the additional server request...

    3. Re:And insert ads by DigiShaman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe. If you don't plan on paying or shit, why not? OTOH you pay a small fee to opt out of ads, that would be ok too.

      When someone offers a "free" service, it's not really free. Almost always there is a hidden catch of some sort. This idea. This mentality that everything in the world should be free with no strings attached is ludicrous. Either you read and accept the TOS, or you don't.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    4. Re:And insert ads by Anrego · · Score: 2

      Oh man.. nostalgia flashback to the geocities days :D

      I remember entire sites dedicated to little bits of script you'd put in your pages to trick various the free website providers "ad insertion code" into pluggin their ad code into an invisible frame or commented out section or used javascript to remove the ad after the fact!

    5. Re:And insert ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      (Posting AC because I'm at work and I don't log in from work...)

      Why would you presume that? Google doesn't exactly have a reputation for those sorts of shenanigans. In fact, of all the for-profit companies, they actually manage to walk that very fine line of offering services for free while taking what they need to turn a profit while rarely ever screwing people over. I suspect they'll offer this service for free, offer it in a way that makes people _want_ to use it, and gather the information they want so they can better provide eyes to their advertisers, much the way they've been doing for years. Which leads to my second point - why insert ads into a website that probably already carries Google's ads? It's the biggest ad network so most websites already use it - they don't need to inject ads since they're already there.

    6. Re:And insert ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I presume they'll be inserting ads into your website!

      Just because you would do that, if you controlled the flow of traffic, doesn't mean Google would do so as well.

    7. Re:And insert ads by Amouth · · Score: 1

      I would say the hidden catch here is that they now know more about your site traffic than they did be fore.

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
    8. Re:And insert ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The fine article says this is a trial run after which they expect to charge a fee.

    9. Re:And insert ads by repetty · · Score: 1

      I presume they'll be inserting ads into your website!

      How are you entitled to do that?

    10. Re:And insert ads by darkmeridian · · Score: 2

      Google is not offering this as a free service once this comes out of beta. The introduction page says that they intend to charge for it once it comes out of limited beta testing. Otherwise, I guess everyone would go with the cheapest possible webhost then have Google pick up the hosting slack.

      --
      A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
    11. Re:And insert ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And while they're at it, they can trim out all the news stories we shouldn't be reading anyway!

    12. Re:And insert ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... and build more elaborate profiles on your visitors, as well.

    13. Re:And insert ads by dsouza42 · · Score: 1

      I agree, but they actually never said it would be free. So far they are just testing it so if you want it you can sign up to help them test if for free. But the FAQ says: "At this time, the service is being offered to a limited set of webmasters free of charge. Pricing will be competitive and details will be made available later."

    14. Re:And insert ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I find the idea that everything must have strings attached and cost money, or both as it frequently happens, even more ludicrous. Sometimes, open and accessible (!=free) collaboration could benefit society more, at the expense of individual profit.
      Most of the things that drive society today are invented in an academic environment and/or by people who are a genuinely interested in what they are doing far more than they are in profits (or they would be economists instead of scientists and inventors). I think it's about time we drop the greed==innovation already, it's not happening as envisioned, and it never will, as long as it depends on human nature.
      I agree with your point on free services through. Google isn't a charity and their business model should make their motives obvious. I do wish services which collect your data and/or serve you ads in exchange wouldn't advertise themselves as "free" through. "Free with strings attached" is not.

  4. Phishing/Ads nightmare? by shellster_dude · · Score: 1

    I wonder how soon before this is used in elaborate spear phishing attempts to bypass a lot of trust issues.

    "The page looks like it came from Google..."

  5. No surpises here really by tomcatuk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So in 2010 they tell webmasters speed is now a ranking factor. A few months later they launch a paid for service for webmasters to improve speed. Cynical? Me? Possibly...

    1. Re:No surpises here really by outsider007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Speed should be a ranking factor. They still need to demonstrate better latency than competing CDNs if they want my business.

      --
      If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
    2. Re:No surpises here really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So someone with the actual content will be punished while spammers speed up their service to get better rankings. Yep

    3. Re:No surpises here really by icebraining · · Score: 1

      That has been known to affect Google ranking for a long time - any competent webmaster should know that.

    4. Re:No surpises here really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clearly, what they should have done is.... talk about speed being important, and then release a tool to make pages slower.

      Wait, no.

      I mean, say that speed is not important, then make a tool to make pages slower.

      er...

      Say nothing, and then release a tool?

    5. Re:No surpises here really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      _They_ measure the latency to decide ranks! Even if they don't cheat, they are testing the latency of their own server parks from inside...

  6. Worthless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    According to the FAQ, it does not support Flash, HTTPS, IPv6, or third-party hosted sites (http://code.google.com/speed/pss/faq.html#handlehttps). HTTPS is a deal-breaker for me...

    1. Re:Worthless by ledow · · Score: 1

      How do you expect a 3rd party without your TLS private key to proxy AND compress (i.e. modifying the content) your HTTPS connections?

    2. Re:Worthless by Em+Ellel · · Score: 1

      How do you expect a 3rd party without your TLS private key to proxy AND compress (i.e. modifying the content) your HTTPS connections?

      Its Google - we expect magic. Damn the common sense!!!

      Seriously though - they could support it by you providing them with a key/cert - just like any other HTTPS proxy. The issue is that the way GHS works - it is very difficult, if not impossible, to support SSL. They would have to have a separate dedicated IP for each site (i.e. no just assigning your DNS to ghs.google.com) or a very large, very convoluted, ever changing certificates with a LOT of aliases. This is why GHS never supported SSL - even for content hosted by Google.

      -Em

      --
      RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
    3. Re:Worthless by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      Simple. They hire Bruce Schneier and he arranges for man-in-the-middle attacks on all your traffic. Google can then also insert some ads into the encrypted stream as your users surf your site, thus keeping the service free for the rest of us :)

  7. CDN for images only? by joshuao3 · · Score: 2

    This seems like an amazing simple solution for the biggest bandwidth hogs on my servers--the images. But, it seems like it's not set up to perform in this role satisfactorily. In the FAQs, it looks like they recompress images. I'm pretty sure I'd never want another site to monkey with my, or my clients', images. An elegant and nearly transparent way to install a CDN this may be, but unless they are willing to never ever mess with my content, I don't think this will work for me. At this point move along, there is nothing to see here.

    --
    Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
    1. Re:CDN for images only? by outsider007 · · Score: 1

      The only reason I can imaging having a problem with lossless image compression is if you hate your visitors.

      --
      If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
    2. Re:CDN for images only? by joshuao3 · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't have a problem with lossless compression as long as any alpha-transparency is maintained. So, perhaps I missed something: Where does it say that the compression will be lossless?

      --
      Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
    3. Re:CDN for images only? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you don't want it to mess with your images, just tell it not to. you can even prevent specific files from being rewritten. Also, the recompression should be lossless, see here

    4. Re:CDN for images only? by joshuao3 · · Score: 1

      Excellent. Thank you for digging this up.

      --
      Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
    5. Re:CDN for images only? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Put those images on a subdomain and blacklist it. Voila, it'll skip recompressing those images.

    6. Re:CDN for images only? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a result of rewriting, the visual quality of images should not degrade in any perceptible way.

      Technically, that's not quite the definition of lossless recompression (exact pixel-for-pixel equivalency is). But it should be good enough for nearly all practical purposes.

  8. CloudFlare for me by improfane · · Score: 1

    This is why I am using CloudFlare.

    Somehow I trust them more than Google.

    --
    Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
    1. Re:CloudFlare for me by NevarMore · · Score: 1

      Can you quantify this? What metrics can one use to decide what CDN to use?

    2. Re:CloudFlare for me by improfane · · Score: 1

      Google's blatant disregard to privacy and the ubiquitous tracking.

      CloudFlare is a relative newcomer that seems to be about security.

      Hm.

      --
      Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
    3. Re:CloudFlare for me by s73v3r · · Score: 1

      ...Ok. How about their actual service. Their prices, how well they actually do they things they claim to be able to do, that sort of thing.

      Increased privacy would be nice, but first and foremost, I have to go with the solution that works.

  9. Opera...again by guppysap13 · · Score: 2

    Not sure if anyone has heard of it before, but Opera has had a similar feature built in for a while called Opera Turbo, which compresses pages on their servers before they are downloaded to the browser. It's also how Opera on the iPhone works, because of Apple's restrictions.

    1. Re:Opera...again by mounthood · · Score: 2

      There's a current web site/service offering this but focused on protection: blocking SQL injection, botnet spam, etc... I can't for the life of me remember what it's called. They act as a CDN and reverse proxy too, but speeding up the sites was more of a side effect of reducing the number of queries by something like 30%.

      --
      tomorrow who's gonna fuss
    2. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Opera does it from the client side, and Google offers it from the server side. Technique might be the same, but approach is different.

    3. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure if anyone has heard of it before, but Opera has had a similar feature built in for a while called Opera Turbo, which compresses pages on their servers before they are downloaded to the browser. It's also how Opera on the iPhone works, because of Apple's restrictions.

      No. Not even close.
       
      This (and every other CDN) is for web site hosters. Opera is for website users. If I am hosting a website from my basement, the speed is likely to be mediocre due to my upstream speed. If I reverse proxy through a CDN, then my website is cached within the CDN's servers (much faster than mine, much better internet connection. Content served from an optimized location respective of the website user). A better comparison would be to Akamai or EdgeCast or CacheFly or LimeLight or Rackspace CloudFiles or ....

    4. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CloudFlare?

    5. Re:Opera...again by guppysap13 · · Score: 1

      That's what I get for posting to slashdot before I take a shower. Thanks!

    6. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's called cloudflare.

    7. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CloudFlare.

      I'm using them for a couple of small sites and they seem to work as advertised. I even used them to block certain spam countries from hitting the site

    8. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cloudflare.

    9. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Opera has had a similar feature built in

      TFS has nothing to do with compression the files before being sent. And I'd have to dig into Opera Turbo a bit more but I'm skeptical that Opera redirects all traffic through their server first so it can be compressed. That makes no sense. The extra time involved with that extra layer would wipe out any benefit of having it compressed in the first place.

      Compression happens at the web server, if enabled, if the browser requests it. Which is how I believe stuff such as Opera Turbo works and I'm pretty sure all modern browsers do this.

    10. Re:Opera...again by mounthood · · Score: 1
      CloudFlare! Thank you. https://www.cloudflare.com/overview.html

      On average, a website on CloudFlare ...
      ... loads twice as fast
      ... uses 60% less bandwidth
      ... has 65% fewer requests
      ... is way more secure

      --
      tomorrow who's gonna fuss
    11. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And again, all I can say is:

      My hand-written, pre-compiled and compressed XHTML 1.1 (Transitional is for n00bs and losers!) already is perfect!
      I don't want them to put their shitty wannabe coder mangling all over it. If it has a additional space in it, it's there for a reason, shitheads! No exceptions.

      Maybe they target those Dreamweaver-using hacks who can't even write HTML 4 Transitional without their tools...

    12. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's also how Opera on the iPhone works, because of Apple's restrictions.

      Not because. It worked that way prior to the iPhone.

    13. Re:Opera...again by Em+Ellel · · Score: 1

      No. Not even close.

      Knee-jerk much? At least spend a second Googling something you know nothing about before commenting.

      This is EXACTLY like Opera Turbo - which is an optimizing proxy server - the only key difference is that Google's service is browser agnostic and Opera's designed to work with Opera browsers only.

      -Em

      --
      RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
    14. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're wrong. When using Turbo, all pages are delivered from Opera's Turbo servers. They compress the data and reduce the quality of any images so that the download is faster for low bandwidth connections. You might want to learn about or at least use the service before you start talking out of your ass.

    15. Re:Opera...again by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      I'd have to dig into Opera Turbo a bit more but I'm skeptical that Opera redirects all traffic through their server first so it can be compressed. That makes no sense. The extra time involved with that extra layer would wipe out any benefit of having it compressed in the first place.

      That's precisely what Turbo does, but you miss the point of it. It's not so that you can squeeze an extra 50ms on your megabit pipe. It's for when you're on GPRS or dial-up, or other kind of connectivity that is bandwidth-limited.

    16. Re:Opera...again by CjDMaX · · Score: 1

      Cloudfire?

    17. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cloudflare.com is prob what your thinking of and I use it on all my sites.

    18. Re:Opera...again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty sure you're describing cloudflare.com ..

  10. Re:What's next? Google Sex Beta? by cvtan · · Score: 1

    After millions of years, Sex2.0 is still in beta? This is worse than Duke Nukem.

    --
    Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
  11. DDOS protection? by assemblerex · · Score: 1

    Would this have google take all DDOS hits and not my server? Sounds good.

    1. Re:DDOS protection? by REggert · · Score: 1

      Only if they're targeting you by your DNS name and not your IP address.

      --

      cp /dev/zero ~/signature.txt

    2. Re:DDOS protection? by allo · · Score: 0

      they will not see your ip, if google is your cdn and your A(AAA)-record points to google.

  12. Re:What's next? Google Sex Beta? by outsider007 · · Score: 1

    Nice astroturf attempt, Sergei.

    --
    If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
  13. Holy shit by Mr+44 · · Score: 1

    Holy shit, 6 out of 7 respondents to the GP (all but anredo) completely missed the point. [insert standard complaint about slashdot going downhill].

    Web pages with script are not static, and caching the HTML script output does nothing. Server-side code generally has to be run per-visitor. Akamai has all sorts of crazy custom XML to specify which portions are static.

    Setting up a proper CDN for the modern web is more complicated than just redirecting some DNS entries.

    1. Re:Holy shit by Em+Ellel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Holy shit, 6 out of 7 respondents to the GP (all but anredo) completely missed the point. [insert standard complaint about slashdot going downhill].

      Web pages with script are not static, and caching the HTML script output does nothing. Server-side code generally has to be run per-visitor. Akamai has all sorts of crazy custom XML to specify which portions are static.

      Setting up a proper CDN for the modern web is more complicated than just redirecting some DNS entries.

      LOL. Talk about pot calling kettle black. This is what happens when you read the slashdot summary instead of the source material. Allow me to explain what you are missing - what Google is doing is not a CDN at all, its just a bad summary. They are providing an optimizing proxy - it could care less if your content is static or dynamic, as long as it generates HTML output, it will work. It is unclear from first glance if the proxy is a caching proxy - I would guess it is - but even then it would be a stretch to call it a CDN in a modern sense of the word.

      --
      RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
    2. Re:Holy shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Setting up a proper CDN for the modern web is more complicated than just redirecting some DNS entries.

      OK, sure. But what does that at all have to do with the article?

      [insert standard complaint about slashdot going downhill].

      You said it bro

  14. Anyone signed up and read the TOS by cjjjer · · Score: 1

    Would be interesting to see how they can use the content after downloading and what kind of rights on the content you are giving up. At the very least you have given Google the "right" to do analysis on all traffic to your site and the content of your site; whatever that entails.

  15. A test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A test:

    http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110728_PJ_84d87ed307e3256893ec9200809b5643/

  16. Re:PSS: Brought to you by the Google Health Vault by MadChicken · · Score: 1

    It's just the next Wave of features from their Labs.

    --
    SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
  17. Re:What's next? Google Sex Beta? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where do you get off assuming it was Sergei without anything to back it up?

    It probably was Larry.

  18. Not just content with controlling search traffic.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They want to know where you're going when you're not using Google, too. I'll pass. OpenDNS has been decent so far.

  19. for end users, a tangible benefit is obvious to me by way2trivial · · Score: 1

    with metered internet caps, the speedup must be removing a lot of cruft from pages- thereby reducing the usage-- maybe not as much as say netflix's reductions but certainly enough to be useful for low limit cell data plans...

    something that shaves a tenth the time must shave at least half that in bytes....

    in my life I've authored webpages using wysiwyg editors that had an enormous amount of cruft.

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
  20. Then google shuts ya down if they wish by Cito · · Score: 1

    Then I can see it now, just like godaddy pulling people's domains due to I.C.E. and the many many reports of legit domains being yanked and not given back over the goofups.

    I can see same happening to google, say you have a site with opinions and content that government doesn't like or google doesn't like, they will just yank it offline without notification.

    they already do that with their blogger service. I used to have a domain name pointed to their blogger service they offered domain hosting for free through blogger, but my site was shut down for having objectional content and I was using it to critique and log I.C.E. and godaddy behavior. Even had a large section on the Feds and ICE were demanding Mozilla pull the mafia plugin for firefox and mozilla publicly refused and still do.

    Yet google yanked my page for objectional material.

    so yea, you go ahead and trust google and use this service, then if your site has any content they do not agree with be ready for it to disappear.

    1. Re:Then google shuts ya down if they wish by darkmeridian · · Score: 1

      The government pretty much gets to bully around any webhost or registrar that it wants, be it Google or GoDaddy or BlueHost. But if Google refuses to publish your content on their CDN, you can simply redirect your DNS back to your original host, which needs to be maintained anyway because that's how Google would get updates. I wouldn't trust anyone to host my objectionable content without a backup. Look what happened to Wikileaks and the Amazon debacle.

      --
      A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
    2. Re:Then google shuts ya down if they wish by Cito · · Score: 1

      Thats true, I definitely wouldn't let google handle it all. Even if I was running an E-Commerce website there is no way in hell I'd release full control to google even if it did speed up the site by 1 to 3 seconds. And I would highly recommend never using it if you run an opinionated site, any type of site that criticizes government/google or exposes security flaws in apple/windows OS's as they are usually prone to being attacked. And those that use free hosting like google's blogger usually get their sites removed for objectional content.

  21. eat own dogfood by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I will do this when google runs its own websites through it's own pagespeed service.
    According to my HTML validator www.google.com has 64 errors /4 warnings (and that is without performing a search)

    A message to Google: Fix your own shit before trying to fix others.

  22. Free is always the right price by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm wondering how Akamai is feeling this morning.

  23. And if you don't sign up... by Beorytis · · Score: 1

    ...don't expect your page to show up in search results above other sites that have signed up.

    1. Re:And if you don't sign up... by vgerclover · · Score: 1

      Have you seen any evidence that Google skews its ranking system in favor of clients that use other Google services? The most I've seen is ads being placed on top, clearly marked as ads. It is in Google's best interest to keep search excellent, regardless of any money that someone could throw at them. After all, they seem to be doing great without the need to sell out on search, don't they?

    2. Re:And if you don't sign up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google takes into account load times when ranking pages. If your site is served from the same datacenter then you'll have a better load time and therefore a better PageRank at the expense of everyone who doesn't pay for Google CDN. So, yes, this is anti-competitive.

    3. Re:And if you don't sign up... by swillden · · Score: 1

      Google takes into account load times when ranking pages. If your site is served from the same datacenter then you'll have a better load time and therefore a better PageRank at the expense of everyone who doesn't pay for Google CDN. So, yes, this is anti-competitive.

      I think it's highly unlikely that Google will fail to account for the same-data-center latency reduction.

      The reason Google boosts the ranking of fast sites is because they want to provide a better experience for users (so users will keep coming back, so Google can keep showing ads to them). It does no good to favor the server in the other side of the building over one somewhere else if the Google server isn't also faster for the end user. I'm sure they have some clever ways of estimating the performance the user will see and adjusting their ranking based on that.

      Of course, it's likely that an accurate measurement of user-perceived speed still favors the site cached by Google. But that's not anticompetitive, except in the sense that doing a better job than the competition is "anticompetitive".

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  24. Don't Be Evil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Alright Google, sooner or later you will have most of the internet in the palm of your hands (if you don't already). So, try and keep your promise about not being evil. Not that it'd matter much once the CEOs die out and we get new CEOs who end up being evil. Thus, every day Google should make all employees repeat a mantra. It'd go, "Don't be evil, don't be evil, don't be evil, don't be evi..." etc etc. ...We are so screwed.

  25. Preliminary Tests by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, the preliminary tests don't exactly seem promising. At least not for my site. Though I find it very odd that it says the site took 7 seconds to load naturally when all of our records indicate that people are getting much faster load times.

    http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110728_8X_59f9be28951b0d52b317193839360e72/

  26. Static pages on an online shopping site by tepples · · Score: 1

    Complete page generation for each request is really only justified if there are either too many pages to write them all to a static cache at the same time

    Would an online shopping site with 80,000 products count? The product photos probably would though.

    or if the pages are very dynamic (like very active forum threads or other dynamic data that needs to be delivered "fresh").

    Would an online shopping site that displays which products a given user has recently viewed in this shopping session and what items are in the shopping cart count? Or possibly each page of product search results.

  27. That's CloudFlare by tepples · · Score: 1

    You're thinking of this story about CloudFlare.

  28. google CDN vs CloudFlare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We run on cloudflare; and google CDN would make it slower!

    http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110728_KG_7fb43f968043f8550174ccf5cb68eaf2/
    http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110728_C5_6d5bcabab829a123dbcb443250665c70/

    Seems like they have some work to do!

    At the moment cloudflare is the clear winner.

    1. Re:google CDN vs CloudFlare by datapharmer · · Score: 1

      yep, check your ping times versus google - cloudflare rocks!

      --
      Get a web developer
    2. Re:google CDN vs CloudFlare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The results are not accurate right now because the webpagetest.org server is overloaded.

  29. Lossless recompression by tepples · · Score: 1

    So, perhaps I missed something: Where does it say that the compression will be lossless?

    There are tools to convert still GIF images to indexed PNG images, which are smaller except in a tiny minority of the smallest images. There are tools such as pngout, OptiPNG, and pngcrush that losslessly recompress the image data in PNG files and strip non-essential metadata. There are also tools like jpegtran that recompress JPEG files by trimming out Exif metadata and thumbnails, making the Huffman (entropy coding) tables more efficient, and deciding which "progressive" coefficient order produces the smallest file.

    But to reiterate your question: Where does it say that Google will be using tools like these?

  30. Akamai? Inktomi? by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Funny how all of the slashdotters are talking about privacy issues instead of this service's potential to disrupt the paid CDN industry. I wonder what Akamai thinks about this development? Or the folks at Inktomi (now part of Yahoo, I believe) for that matter?

    --
    Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
  31. Re:cloudflare by datapharmer · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I can't imagine cloudflare is particularly thrilled about this given that they had been discussing their technology with google in the past to improve optimization etc. That said, cloudflare has a free option, google does not (and at this time cloudflare has better response times than google under many conditions)

    --
    Get a web developer
  32. What is a CDN? by Requiem18th · · Score: 1

    Ever since I started using Request Policy (a Firefox extension) I've noticed that severan sites use request to another domain that looks related but end in cdn, example. www.penny-arcade.com makes requests to pa-cdn.com, and there are many other examples of such.

    To me it sucks because if too many sites start requiring google-cdn.com I might as well stop using Request Policy, and no I don't use google.com for my searches.

    --
    But... the future refused to change.
    1. Re:What is a CDN? by nahdude812 · · Score: 1

      CDN stands for Content Distribution Network. The basic idea is they locate a variety of servers topologically close to you so that hop count goes down (reduced latency), and potential bottlenecks or core route disruptions have little or not affect on you.

    2. Re:What is a CDN? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      cdn = content distribution network?

  33. Google CDN? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google Canadian? We already have google.ca.

    Are the problems in the US getting so bad that even Google is completely moving to Canada? :)

  34. Slashdot goes slower.. thanks google! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110728_18_d3f5fc7d0df3a3b3842d71d71ba235f9/

  35. missing a key feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they'll enable the tool which will fetch your content from your servers, rewrite your webpages, and serve them up from Google's own servers around the world.

    and allow google to track even more people who haven't "opted-in" to their analytics and data mining. The same reason to avoid google dns.

  36. Before you post, please read about how CDNs work by Dimes · · Score: 2

    There have been too many dumb posts...not that that is too unusual...but really its not that hard:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network

    dimes

  37. Re:Akamai? Inktomi? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Having been a customer of Akamai and a customer of Google (people still use Inktomi? Golly.) the support Akamai delivers alone makes it worth the money. Google support simply doesn't even exist- even when you pay. Akamai were also the first to offer HTTP Live Streaming, have origin/edge problems completely worked out, have perks like OVP... I don't know for certain but if I were making a choice I would say Akamai without hesitation.

    All that said- for the frugal, Google. Their ad/analytics package and now this, docs and email as free[sic] services can take you quite far. Actually the ad and page analytics stuff is what I recommend for just about any case. Omniture and DoubleClick offer the same stuff but at a hefty fee with only so so support.

  38. Re:Akamai? Inktomi? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Definitely disruptive but what many CDN customers don't realize is that it takes more than just software and bandwidth to run a CDN. It's a very operationally-intensive business. 24/7/365. People who rely on their content distribution and publishing or website can't afford it to perform poorly or go down. Is Google prepared to handle that kind of customer service? I'm not sure. Being in the CDN industry (at Limelight Networks, Akamai's largest competitor), I've seen companies try to build their own CDNs only to fail at it because it takes so much operational support to properly run it.

    http://blog.jasonthibeault.com/index.php/2011/07/28/starting-a-business-and-running-it-are-two-different-things/

  39. Broadcst Rights by boojumbadger · · Score: 1

    Of course once copyright law has been expanded to give sole rights to broadcasters, google will own all your stuff because they are hosting it and broadcasting it to the world.

  40. So.... by neoform · · Score: 1

    At what point are we going to just throw our hands up and allow google to control every aspect of our internet experience?

    So far:

    -Dominating search
    -Branching off into the world of ISPs (with their new fiber in Ohio)
    -DNS
    -Hosting/CDN
    -Browser
    -Social Media
    -Image hosting
    -Email
    -Chat/Video/Phone

    The way things are going, they will literally become the internet. Everything single page request you make will involve google in some way...

    As it stands, I'm pretty sure 90% of the websites I go to have at least one js request, whether it be from adsense or analytics...

    Having a single corporation controlling the internet scares me. Don't forget, Google is a corporation and cares more about profit than anything else.

    --
    MABASPLOOM!
    1. Re:So.... by p0ntus · · Score: 1

      At what point are we going to just throw our hands up and allow google to control every aspect of our internet experience?

      So far:

      -Dominating search -Branching off into the world of ISPs (with their new fiber in Ohio) -DNS -Hosting/CDN -Browser -Social Media -Image hosting -Email -Chat/Video/Phone

      The way things are going, they will literally become the internet. Everything single page request you make will involve google in some way...

      As it stands, I'm pretty sure 90% of the websites I go to have at least one js request, whether it be from adsense or analytics...

      Having a single corporation controlling the internet scares me. Don't forget, Google is a corporation and cares more about profit than anything else.

      You forgot cloud computing with Google Docs.

  41. Re:Akamai? Inktomi? by dsouza42 · · Score: 1

    It's not really the same service. Services such as Akamai serve mostly static content. Google's service optimizes the pages on your website as they are served, even dynamic pages. It basically takes over your website, which many people won't want. It will actually be competing with other similar services such as Cloudflare and Incapsula (both of which I tried and both of which still have some pretty serious issues - enough for me to leave them). If Google does a good job with a competitive price it just might run such companies out of business.

  42. Re:Akamai? Inktomi? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't think yahoo has preserved the old inktomi CDN. I worked at yahoo search and for a certain project we ended up using Akamai. Either way, yahoo search is being shout down and all the old inktomi tech is getting tossed.

  43. Seriously, though... by monstermash161 · · Score: 1

    What does using Google's DNS servers imply, traffic-sniffing-wise? Are they monitoring at all? Not that my ISP isn't monitoring, but somehow I don't mind that. I'm wondering more about Google monitoring my traffic in relation to my online identities.

  44. As an ex-Akamaiite, I can only say by GillBates0 · · Score: 1

    nothing.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  45. slower then direct by PPNSteve · · Score: 1

    I RTFA (yeah I know) and checked out the service.. there was a comparison site so I entered one of my web site's URL. Waited as the test ran and it turns out my site direct is 4.6% FASTER then the optimized Google proxy.
    Go figure.

    --
    PPN
  46. Similar to a service called... by ahziem · · Score: 1

    Google Page Speed is like CloudFlare, which is an easy-to-use, free, sort-of-CDN/web-proxy with rewriting rules. I've been using it for a few months and haven't noticed any problems, and CloudFlare seems more matures. Each offers unique features: CloudFlare has security features to prevent some attacks and bots, while Google has some unique rewriting rules and sharding.

  47. Re:Akamai? Inktomi? by GP1911 · · Score: 1

    Google runs hundreds of large and varied services, including their own CDN, already. I think they can handle it.

  48. it is actually slower for me actually? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Page load time goes up from 5 to 6.5 seconds for my homepage.

    (Still not bad for a page with 4269 links. http://blog.go-here.nl )

  49. "Competitive pricing" by Johnny+Mnemonic · · Score: 1


    and pricing will be âoecompetitive"

    Indeed, I'll bet it will. Competitive with AWS? They don't say that you won't need to have a site of your own, but if they're hosting you, why would you?

    And it'll probably pay for itself, as the decrease in latency that you receive will improve your search ranking.

    --

    --
    $tar -xvf .sig.tar
  50. Warning: This confuses location-based services by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not sure if anyone has heard of it before, but Opera has had a similar feature built in for a while called Opera Turbo, which compresses pages on their servers before they are downloaded to the browser. It's also how Opera on the iPhone works, because of Apple's restrictions.

    Hopefully this is smarter than Opera's system. I had my PayPal account suspended because I logged in using Opera Mini, and PayPal's location-based fraud detection kicked in. It turns out that Opera had bounced my connection through a server 1000+ miles away from my actual location. The same thing could happen with banks, webmail, or any other service which uses your IP address to determine your location. A 20% speedup in page load times is *NOT* worth it if you are getting locked out of your accounts.

  51. main screen turn on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All your base

  52. GOOGLE CANADA WOOT! by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    Now with the "I'm Feeling Lucky Eh" button!

  53. Re:all your base... (but not flash) by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 2

    But somehow I have trouble believing that the customer would get nothing out of this. Even if it's only faster delivery to an end user , that is a very real and very tangible thing.

    I just ran their test on a page from my web site. The page contains a flash photo presentation with accompanying music (still waiting for a non-Flash-based tool of comparable features and ease of use; nothing even remotely close exists). According to webpagetest.org the original page loaded in 2.4 seconds, while Google's "optimized" version took 21.3 seconds. Neither of them actually loaded the Flash presentation properly. Is this because Google dislikes Flash or is it a problem with webpagetest.org?

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  54. "rewrite your webpages" by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Umm no thanks.

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    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  55. Can anyone else see this? by pasv · · Score: 1
    Lets all remember anything Google does "for free" is not "for free" it is for strategic advantage. I just see this being abused for more targeted ads. Akamai is also a partner of Microsoft. I'm not saying this wont be a good service or if there will be privacy issues but lets all remember that a company of any size has no reason to do anything for free, even the most basic of charity is good PR at the very least.

    How can this be used for more targeted ads you ask? Quite simple really. If they host the content they have every right to scan the content. Lets take images for example, we know they have the capability of doing a full image search. They scan their hosted images add tags to them then every time a visitor goes to your site Google will record how many page views you get/record the client IP. This IP can be later used to connect to a Google account, thus providing more targeted ads in your subsequent searches. We all have to look at the big picture. I can only see Google's stocks rising.

  56. Re:Akamai? Inktomi? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Content producers pay for the CDNs. Its unlikely they would stop doing so in the hope that all of their customers will use the Google service.

    Dosclaimer: I work for Google

  57. Google to use CDN instead of USD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reading the headline, along with the recent downward spiral of the US dollar,I thought Google was going to start using CDN dollars instead of USD as their new standard currency.

  58. Maybe no ads BUT... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    THink about the immense benefit to Google, even without showing you ads. They know EVERYTHING that you are looking at online. Every site down to the very image and Javascript file will be logged and analyzed. I'm quite sure they will be logging and analyzing DNS hits.

  59. Re:for end users, a tangible benefit is obvious to by halltk1983 · · Score: 1

    Or you could actually look up how a CDN works.

    Instead of cutting out bytes, they serve content from geographically closer servers. This allows lower latency, and distributed load, with means faster page loads and better response to the end user.

    --
    Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
  60. Re:for end users, a tangible benefit is obvious to by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

    in my life I've authored webpages using wysiwyg editors that had an enormous amount of cruft.

    Well whoopee for you. I'd be more impressed if you'd written (if that's what the Americanism "authored" means) web pages that had an enormous amount of cruft, using a text editor. That would be showing serious dedication to generating cruft.

    Using a cruft-generating machine to generate cruft is about as impressive as standing on a beach holding a broom and saying "I've decided to let the tide come swooshing in".

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  61. Re:all your base... (but not flash) by RoFLKOPTr · · Score: 1

    If the flash file loads just fine when you visit the page you tested, then there's obviously a problem with webpagetest.

  62. Next, a Virtual Browsing Agent (VBA) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have read that there is a lot time wasted by people hanging out on the web. I see this as a first step. Google becomes the primary web hosting agent. Then they bring out a virtual user browsing service that randomly browses the web pages they are hosting. As an option you can provide your credit card number so that the virtual browsing agent can purchase thing on the web at random and have them sent to your address of record. You can even disclose your orientation so the virtual browsing agent can participate in DDOS operations on your behalf. Can't you just see the elegant nature of a system where google is the provider and the hacker. For corporate clients, customer credit card records can be stored in a semi-secure database as part of the Google offering so that the browsing agent can collect credit card numbers on your behalf, auction them off to the Russian mafia and deposit a percentage (66%) in an on-line bank account that they also provide and host. The ramifications are staggering. Imagine where this could lead to... Think of all the productive time you could get back if the virtual browsing agent freed up all the time you are currently spending on the web.

  63. If I use a pseudonym on Google+... by moozh84 · · Score: 1

    Will my webpage suddenly become inaccessible and point to an "Account suspended" page?

  64. And this one at least by way2trivial · · Score: 1

    also specifically optimizes the html & the images in the page, reducing the file sizes, keeping my assertion valid.

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random