Question
If you, as a webmaster, employ any private pages on your website, or have webpage-based message functions (like here PMs) or any admin pages (like console servers on web hosts) DO NOT use Google Web Accelerator.
Unless you are absolutely sure all your private information is 100% locked down and you do not use any non-standard functions in passing parameters or session cookies, DO NOT allow any viewers with Web Accelerator visit your website.
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Here's one tip on how to block Web Accelerator from your website:
http://fantomaster.com/fantomNews/ar...b-accelerator/
It's very technical, I'm afraid. Expect more complete and easier blocks to be published in the next few days.
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There have always been two schools of thought about web page content. One side believes that the person/company who created the content has ownership, always and forever. The other side believes the creator has ownership...right up until the moment it's on the net. The net is public domain and content found there can be saved, edited, merged--folded, spindled, mutilated--by anyone with a right-click button and web space.
With the beta release of Auto Link for Google Toolbar last month and Web Accelerator on Wednesday, Google has firmly placed it's 800-lb ass in the second camp. Now you can view all web content through Google eyes. Censorship at it's most sneaky. Shades of AOHell!
Some buzz about Auto Link:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759...039TX1B0000665
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1765729,00.asp
About Web Accelerator:
http://www.betanews.com/article/Goog...ing/1115245985
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...6/tc_zd/151477
The parts that, as a web designer, really push my buttons:
AutoLink inserts links into Web pages...[some of] the links connect by default to the recently unveiled Google Maps service. The others take users to third-party sites....Google billed the feature as an easier way to gather related information....
Hey, if I want to provide links to other sites in MY web pages, I'll do it myself, ok?
Google Web Accelerator, which routes browser activity through Google machines to make Web pages load faster....
Google will only refresh a Web page when it has been updated, saving the user from reloading content when unnecessary...
Google admits there are some potential privacy concerns associated with the application. Although it does not handle requests for secure sites, cookies and passwords submitted via an unencrypted Web page, may be temporarily cached by Google.
Speechless. I'm speechless.
Google has just made all it's users one big happy family--and stripped away all privacy. If your "sister" Google Web Accelerator user likes the same forum you do, next time YOU ask to see the forum pages, you might see HER pages instead ('cause they all been cached by the GoogleGod now!).
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What does this mean for webmasters?
Read this: http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2858
Editorial content aside, there's some chilling facts in there. This is talking about what happens from a viewer perspective. Think about it from a webmaster perspective.
Google claims it magically speeds up your Internet connection, and for the average user, it does. This is done by caching entire websites on Google's servers, passing copies of any page a user visits and sending them to Google HQ. Basically they're just creating carbon copies of everything you read, every site you visit, every image you load, and storing them on their servers, under the idea that you will have a faster connection to their servers than you would to whatever website you're visiting.
Well here's the problem, folks: everything you view is now owned by Google. Do you read email? Well now Google reads your email, and now the entire world can read your email. Do you use private messages through a website? Well they aren't private any more; now anybody using Google's Web Accelerator can read them. Every single page you read, every single website you visit, every single cookie you use, every single thing you do on the Internet is now owned by Google and is viewable to anybody using their program. I hope you're completely comfortable with the entire world being able to see every single webpage you read and every single website you visit, because thanks to Google, it's now happening.
...private forums for mods and admins can now be viewed by anybody. Thanks Google, thank you very much for sharing our sensitive information with the entire Internet....
If you're using Google's Web Accelerator - guess what? - now anybody can read your [web based] private messages! Cookies, logins, sensitive information, private messages - they're all stored on Google's servers now...
Although Google does provide instructions to webmasters on how to keep your web pages from being indexed by the Google search spiders, it does not provide any information on how to keep Web Accelerator from caching your web pages.
It does allow VIEWERS to block certain things from Web Accelerator (http://webaccelerator.google.com/support):
You can block Google Web Accelerator from speeding up pages from a particular subdomain (for example, www.somesite.com) or from an entire domain (for example, othersite.com, including any subdomains it might have, such as mail.othersite.com, www.othersite.com, news.othersite.com, etc).
This only applies to viewers, and only to the specific viewer requesting the page. In order for this to be effective, every single viewer using Web Accelerator would have to use this Opt-Out function before looking at your website. (Oh, yeah...that'll work!)
--Edited to add links--
Answer
More facts about Web Accelerator--
1.) Google Web Accelerator does NOT follow robots.txt or the NOARCHIVE instruction.
2.) It DOES prefetch any link that your cursor moves over, therefor preloading--at your bandwidth expense--links on a page WITHOUT the user clicking them....and this includes paid advertising links. This also causes it to ADD ITEMS that the user did not click to shopping carts on ecommerce sites. (Some people are saying this only happens on Mozilla/FireFox and not IE.)
3.) Web Accelerator initiates proxy requests through another port (not port 80). This means if a viewer uses it with a firewall, they have to open another port.
4.) Web Accelerator completely ignores Windows hosts files.
5.) Dynamic content of web pages that depends on IP addresses (such as differentiating between a US viewer and a Euro viewer) may no longer work.
6.) Web Accelerator tracks a unique ID number along with personal information (like name and company name) scraped from other applications installed on the viewer's computer.
....and I'm still reading.
Answer
Here's an interesting tidbit, from a Google employee:
"if you use the "Cache-Control: private" HTTP header then we don't serve it from our servers"
Have to love the way they word that. Not it's not stored on the server, but they won't retrieve it from the server. Found that posted on a message board. No mention of it at all on the Google site. So, I suppose that could be a webmaster's Opt-Out key. Just change all your pages. Sheesh....
Another note. Be cautious about using a fix blocking IP numbers. Seems Google is moving the proxy server IP number around, and sometimes mixing it with legit Google bot IPs. You may end up blocking Google from spidering your website.
Answer
Other webmasters' comments:
...if you're a webmaster, welcome to the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
I can see a need to change privacy policies all over the web - adding in "if you have Google Web Accellerator turned on, any information you send via standard enquiry forms may be collected and analysed by Google"
I'd like to see everyone on the web using pre-fetch during peak times and watch the festivies, I really would.
Teaser news:
"Tune in at 11-o-clock to see why Federal Investigators are turning their attention to Google as they continue to probe today's mysterious 4 hour collapse of the internet in the US western states."
Answer
Looks like too many folks were downloading it!
Now Google has temporarily halted the availability of downloads.
Story here:
http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch...9130337,00.htm
Answer
Thanks for the info, Jayne.
Perhaps it wasn't that too many people wanted it--but that Google realized they caught the rest of the world with their pants down (but first crawled into their own private residence to catch them).
I hope they come up with an easier fix to prevent a site from beeing Google Web Accelerator-ized.
Answer
I sure wish I understood even a smattering of all that.