Google's SPDY protocol could ramp up Web speeds

As part of its continual push to speed up the Web, Google is taking a look at one of the most basic connections: the conversation between Web servers and browsers.

Google is working on an experimental Web protocol that could make Chrome much faster.

(Credit: Google)

For almost forever, HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) has been the standard that allows Web servers and computer browsers to understand each other, transforming the bits and bytes served up from a Web publisher into a Web page in your browser. But Google announced Thursday that it's working on project called SPDY (pronounced, of course, "speedy") that it feels could make everything faster than HTTP currently allows.

"We want to continue building on the Web's tradition of experimentation and optimization to further support the evolution of websites and browsers. So over the last few months, a few of us here at Google have been experimenting with new ways for Web browsers and servers to speak to each other, resulting in a prototype Web server and Google Chrome client with SPDY support," wrote Mike Belshe and Roberto Peon, software engineers at Google, in a blog post.

In lab conditions unlikely to be duplicated in the real world, Google said SPDY allowed Web pages to load up to 55 percent faster on some of the Internet's biggest sites. "There is still a lot of work we need to do to evaluate the performance of SPDY in real-world conditions. However, we believe that we have reached the stage where our small team could benefit from the active participation, feedback and assistance of the Web community," Belshe and Peon wrote in their blog post.

Techcrunch clarified with Google that it is not planning to advocate one day flipping a switch and moving from HTTP to SPDY, but rather has a more gradual plan in mind where SPDY plays a role in addition to HTTP. One interesting development to watch will be whether Google plans to keep this as a Chrome-only enhancement, or whether it plans to advocate it as a Web standard within the browser community.

[FF2009]

I don't know what Google is up too but I like it.

They been on a roll this couple weeks. Looks like they want to reinvent the Internet as we know it. lol

[Lerianis3]

Hey, that isn't such a bad idea, as long as there are not 'monitoring things' in these protocols. That's a deal breaker for me.

[zyxxy]

And as long as the protocol is published to the world as a standard. A proprietary protocol from Google would bother me as much as a proprietary protocol from Apple or Microsoft.

[moordrake]

But, is it secure ?

[lezmaka]

Probably not, since it was just created. But HTTP isn't secure either. There's HTTPS, but that is just HTTP running on top of something like SSL.

[zyxxy]

And SSL is now known to be vulnerable to attack.

[pkasting]

How could Google keep this "Chrome-only" when it's fully open-source? And why would it be in their best interests to do so when Google makes money not from Chrome, but from advertising, which presumably people would see more of if web page loaded faster?

[DBdweeb]

SPDY might be "speedy" but I thought "spidey" was also apropos.

Arachnophobic.

[Guido11450]

That was my first impression, too. I just read it as spidey when I was reading the heading.

[sfotoord]

While Google has brought a ton of great innovation to the internet, it seems to be a pattern that they like to invent and then share a standard or open source later. It all comes off as very community friendly, but has a creepy undertone to it at the same time.

[rtuinenburg]

As long as most of us keep drinking the Googaide, they will continue to supply it.

[man_in_la2000]

at least better than microaid

sounds a lot like the BEEP protocol to me.

[Chasingu]

This sounds good, anyone know when there going to implement this into Chrome 3 and 4 Beta, which is what I use.

[XCMeathead]

Shouldn't be Chrome only because firstly chrome is open source, and secondly Google benefit directly from making the whole of the web better, so it's be in their interests to make SPDY an open protocol too