Google puts brakes on Accelerator

Google has stopped allowing downloads of its Web Accelerator software, just days after it began offering the product.

Google cited capacity as the reason for putting the brake on downloads of Accelerator, which is designed to speed the delivery of Web pages. A message on the site said the company has reached its "maximum capacity of users and (we) are actively working to increase the number of users we can support."

A Google representative denied on Wednesday that the removal of the tool was connected to the security fears. "It is a limited beta," he said, "and we reached the capacity of users."

The software was launched Thursday but within a day was causing concern among people when it transpired that the software cached more data than many people felt comfortable with, enabling individuals in some cases to log onto secure online pages of others.

Accelerator, which was released in beta, is set up to automatically work with Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer once it has been downloaded. The service stores copies of sites frequently accessed by individual PCs and automatically retrieves new data from those pages, so that a Web browser needs to process only updates to those sites when asked to load them. It can also automatically "pre-fetch" frequently used Web sites before a person downloads it.

On a Google Labs discussion group, one person said that the security implications of Google caching details of Internet sessions were unacceptable. In a statement at the time, Google said the service can receive information such as a person's IP address, computer and connection information, and "personally identifiable information," such as an e-mail address. But, Google said, information entered in SSL connections, such as Internet banking, will not be cached.

Matt Loney of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[Bob_Barker]

Bad idea in the firs place

Serving up cached web sites is a bad idea in the first place. I doubt a typical user would know the difference. <br /><br />How would site opererators ensure that their viewers are recieving the latest information if they're using this "accelerator"? Sounds like Google is doing the user a dis-service in that regard. <br /><br />Even then it opens up a slew of security concerns and it's already starting to show. Good luck with your 'algorithms'.

[Bob_Barker]

Typos :(

Bah, wish you could edit typos here.

google search

Google's cited capacity as the reason for putting the brake's on downloads of Accelerator, or is it people like me removing the google search engine from all the company (20)computers?<br />Not including the 4 computers I have in my family. this is part of another intrusion into people's private lives! People spend tons of money to keep people out of their computers only to freely send it off to google, I don't think so!!<br />I would like to know just how many people did remove google for this reason?

[simcity1976]

hmm

Google is by far for me a great search engine.<br /><br />I don't care for this tool they got but I don't see any reason not to use there search engine because of it. just don't use the tool and you will be fine.

[wimaxweek]

Google's quickly becomming the #1 data mining company...

With this Google has become a watcher. Every move you made on the WWW will be tracked and logged.<br /><br />I don't trust google any more, they don't seem like the company they were a year or 2 ago<br /><br />Matt Hicks confirms that Google Accelerator does indeed have a bug that can cause users to see web pages under other users' logins. Google officials Friday confirmed that the company was aware of as many as five sites where Web Accelerator was returning.<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.news.wimaxweek.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.news.wimaxweek.com</a><br />WiMax broadband wireless technology - Daily News