Google Web Accelerator

The newest little program to hit Google Labs is called the Google Web Accelerator. This is a little program that runs in Windows XP and Windows 2003 SP3, for both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

How does it work? I mean, how can a little program like this make the internet faster for DSL/Cable Modem/Broadband users? Apparently, there a whole lot of web sites sort of stored on Google servers, like a the browser cache on your hard disk. Google's servers are super fast, so therefore, the page loads quicker. It also starts loading the pages that you might click on, from whatever page you are on now (known as prefetch).

Does it work? I don't know, I just started playing with it. Supposedly, I've saved a few seconds, but people who browse a lot might save an hour per day. Quite a savings for a free download. There are some privacy concerns, and the program is in beta, like most things Google. But, this is a cool little piece of code...

I'm almost positive that Google will one day have their own browser. They have so many little Windows utilities now, for both IE and Firefox, and they hired the primary Firefox programmer.

Use caution with this program, but you can turn it off and uninstall it, if you don't like it.