Google Web Accelerator v0.1.52.58 (Beta)

[Shelley]

http://img73.echo.cx/img73/4891/googlewebaccelerator0tm.gif

Google Web Accelerator is an application that uses the power of Google's global computer network to make Web pages load faster.

It is easy to use; all you have to do is download and install it, and from then on many Web pages will automatically load faster than before.

Google Web Accelerator is currently optimized to speed up web page loading for broadband connections.

Google Web Accelerator uses various strategies to make your web pages load faster, including:

- Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible
- Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it
- Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance
- Compressing data before sending it to your computer

Download: Google Web Accelerator (http://webaccelerator.google.com/GoogleWebAcceleratorSetup.msi)

News Source: Google Web Accelerator (http://webaccelerator.google.com/)

[Ash]

I installed this earlier today, it's works well but I am concerned about what information Google actually gathers when you use the service.

[Derek]

Sounds useless to me, my internet is already really fast and loads pages in like a second.

[BadKharma]

I installed this earlier today, it's works well but I am concerned about what information Google actually gathers when you use the service.
That would be my concern btw has anybody installed this and then looked at if it changed the internet cache size in their browsers tools to accomplish this feat?

[Ash]

http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2858

[Derek]

Hmm I wonder if google adds something to the user agent when you visit a site. If it does, you can probably block them from caching your site somehow.

[Ash]

It's not really a concern to webmasters, but to users of the software it is a huge breach of privacy. Google should get rid of this spyware before their reputation is damaged.

[Shelley]

Indeed,

I heard some bad things mentioned with regards to this before I posted, Me being lazy didn't read up what were the cons of this program and hoped that someone would bring this "major" issue up.

Looks like google could be paving there way to having a bad reputation. But I guess most people already knew Google were always out to make money you would be in denial to think anything less.

[Derek]

Actually, it may be a concern to webmasters, I read that article that Ash posted and seeing how it lets you see other peoples private messages if they visited your forums and used google's program, I wouldn't want that to happen on my forums. Also when I tried this on a test board I made it looks like google uses two ip addresses, mine and a google one. Heres what I did:

1. I went to my site not logged in (Guest) with the app running.
2. I then shut it down and uninstalled it, and logged in and went to my acp. It showed two guests, my ip address and a google ip.

So I am thinking that if I ban that ip address in cPanel it should block people using that application.

I'm going to try it lol.

Also, it did not change the cache size when I installed it.

[Derek]

Ok, If you want to block users using the web accelerator from going to your site(s), all you have to do is do a wild card ban on this ip address in your cPanel.

IP: 64.233.173

I tried it, all users using that program will get a forbidden page until they turn it off, then they can access your site. It looks to me like that turns on a proxy, because when I went to www.ipmonkey.com (http://www.ipmonkey.com) it showed a google ip in that range (64.233.173).

Once you do that, it will block the google app.