spdy

Facebook has settled on a networking protocol for speeding up web content delivery. In a W3 mailing list post titled "HTTP2 Expression of Interest," Facebook engineer Doug Beaver outlined why the company has started implementing the SPDY protocol, which is not an acronym but just a short version for the word "speedy," and why it is not interested in HTTP Speed+Mobility or Network-Friendly HTTP Upgrade.

"We at Facebook are enthusiastic about the potential for an HTTP/2.0 standard that will deliver enhanced speed and safety for Web users," Beaver writes. "Of … Read more

A number of improvements that Mozilla has built into today's new Firefox release find the browser playing catch-up, treading water, and forging ahead all at the same time.

If it sounds like a near-impossible juggling act to you, you're not alone.

Firefox 13 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) comes with feature changes and tweaks under the hood. The new features include a redesigned New Tab page that shows you thumbnails of your frequently-visited sites, often dubbed Speed Dial in honor of Opera's take on the feature. Firefox is the last of the major browsers to get some … Read more

PARIS--Engineers have begun taking the first big steps in overhauling Hypertext Transfer Protocol, a seminal standard at the most foundational level of the Web.

At a meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) here yesterday, the working group overseeing HTTP formally opened a dicussion about how to make the technology faster. That discussion included presentations about four specific proposals for HTTP 2.0, including SPDY, developed at Google and already used in the real world, and HTTP Speed+Mobility, developed at Microsoft and revealed Wednesday.

There are some differences in the HTTP 2.0 proposals that have emerged so … Read more

Apparently Microsoft isn't content leaving one potentially important speed boost for the Web to Google.

The company last night announced a plan to improve HTTP -- the Hypertext Transfer Protocol that browsers use to request Web pages and servers use to deliver them -- with a technology it calls HTTP Speed+Mobility. Google has proposed an idea called SPDY for speeding up HTTP and won an important ally at IETF, the group that oversees the standard and that's beginning work on a new HTTP 2.0.

But Microsoft wants a piece of the action, too. It thinks SPDY … Read more

Faster and more secure browsing is coming to Firefox in a big way, as the first Aurora build of Firefox 13 gets the SPDY protocol activated by default, capping off more than four months of work putting SPDY into Firefox.

Firefox 13 Aurora (download for Windows, Mac, and Linux,) doesn't include many other new features or changes that affect Firefox fans directly, but there are many under-the-hood tweaks. One is a user agent change in Firefox for Android, so that Web sites can recognize when a person is running Firefox for Android on a phone or a tablet. This … Read more

Nginx, a Russian startup that has succeeded where others have failed at challenging the dominant Apache software for housing Web sites, has begun trying to convert its popularity into actual money.

Nginx (pronounced "engine X") yesterday unveiled corporate support offerings for the product, a traditional business model for open-source software. It offers three grades--Essential, Advanced, and Premium--with three- and twelve-month contracts for services including installation, configuration, performance tuning, and maintenance.

"Subscribers to the Advanced and Premium options receive design, implementation and optimization assistance, as well as prioritized development. Premium subscribers will have access to an additional set … Read more

Has a slow Web been getting you down lately?

Just imagine if your multibillion-dollar business depended on it, as Google's does. Then imagine the glee in Google's corridors at a significant new victory in the company's attempt to build a Web-accelerating technology it calls SPDY into the Internet.

Earlier today, Mark Nottingham, chairman of the HTTPbis Working Group, announced support for SPDY in an overhaul of one of the networking foundations of the World Wide Web. That foundation is HTTP, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, and Google hopes SPDY will open up some of its bottlenecks.

The HTTPbis … Read more

Big changes are arriving in the developer's build of Firefox for Android in a bid to make it more appealing, while the significantly more popular desktop version is getting several noteworthy but smaller changes, the company announced at the end of 2011.

Available for download now, the first versions of Firefox 11 Aurora for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android came out just after the stable build of the browser updated to version 9. The Android update is again the more notable release, as the new native Android interface reaches a wider audience. For the first time, the browser also … Read more

Google, banging its make-the-Web-faster drum again, announced a new service today to rewrite and host others' Web pages so browsers can load them faster.

But this time, the service isn't free.

The company's earlier moves in this area haven't cost a cent, but Google will charge for the new Page Speed Service when it arrives for the masses at some undefined time in the future. In the past Google used the argument that a faster Web leads to more activity and, ultimately, more ad revenue for Google, but with Page Speed Service, Google is going the old-fashioned … Read more