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+--- Thread: Do not use Google Web Accelerator (/thread-6423.html)
Do not use Google Web Accelerator - DeeBye - 05-07-2005
Google has yet again hit us up with a really nifty utility.
Google Web Accelerator is a public proxy that caches webpages and serves them up to you really fast through Google's servers. The small downloadable executable interfaces seamlessly through IE or Firefox. I checked this out the day it was released, and I was really impressed by it. It sped my webbrowsing up to obscene levels, which is really saying something since I already surf at 3.0 Mbits. Pages loaded almost instantly. It was like browsing HTML files on my desktop.
DO NOT USE GOOGLE'S WEB ACCELERATOR IF YOU VALUE YOUR PRIVACY!
The problem with GWA is that it caches the pages you visit and saves them on public Google servers. They do this so that they can serve the same page up to the next GWA user at superfast Google speed. This sounds great in theory (and works great in practice), but it introduces all kinds of privacy concerns. Visited pages like webmail, forums, private messaging, and other stuff which should never be publicly available is being cached and redistributed to other GWA users.
ZDNet news article about this topic
I have personally seen evidence of just how much of your private online browsing stuff can get cached onto Google's servers, available for anyone to see. I have seen screenshots of people logged into forums under moderator accounts, screenshots of private message listings, and all kinds of other scary stuff. Needless to say, I uninstalled GWA pretty quickly.
I really hope that Google can get this fixed, because I was completely blown away at how fast GWA sped up my browsing.
edit: I posted a thread about GWA when I just downloaded it, but after seeing just how much of a privacy concern it was I immediately PMed Griselda to nuke it. She did so in very short order (thanks Gris :) ). I meant to post a follow-up topic explaining where that missing thread went, and here it is a couple of days late.
Do not use Google Web Accelerator - Encore - 05-07-2005
Wow, I do want to get faster pages (even though my connecting fairly fast to start with) but to hear that Google can see my private stuff? Bye Bye Accelerator.
Do not use Google Web Accelerator - DeeBye - 05-07-2005
Encore,May 7 2005, 12:01 AM Wrote:Wow, I do want to get faster pages (even though my connecting fairly fast to start with) but to hear that Google can see my private stuff? Bye Bye Accelerator.
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It's not Google viewing your private stuff that you have to worry about. The thing you have to worry about is that your browsing history is essentially being stored PUBLICLY on Google's servers if you use GWA. Anyone with an internet connection can see what you do online through GWA.
Do not use Google Web Accelerator - Encore - 05-07-2005
And that means people can read like passwords and stuff?
Do not use Google Web Accelerator - DeeBye - 05-07-2005
Encore,May 7 2005, 01:41 AM Wrote:And that means people can read like passwords and stuff?
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I haven't seen evidence of that. I think that would be impossible, but I'm no expert. I can only relay what I know. As far as I know, GWA can only cache what you see as a static webpage.
Do not use Google Web Accelerator - jahcs - 05-07-2005
Yikes! The potential for abuse from this service is incredible.
Advertisers grab a pic of your email inbox and then send spam...
Someone decides to profile your internet activity...
Someone bypasses login screens to see secure web pages...
The list goes on and on.
Do not use Google Web Accelerator - Dozer - 05-07-2005
I've saved 35.7 minutes in 24 hours ;(
Do not use Google Web Accelerator - Munkay - 05-07-2005
I did a bit of reading. The official FAQ says this:
Quote:2. How do I ask Google Web Accelerator to not accelerate a website?
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).
To block a specific domain from being accelerated, enter its name (without a leading http://) in the Don't Accelerate These Sites preference's text area. For example, to block www.firstdomain.com and mail.seconddomain.com, just type those names in the text area, each on a separate line, and click the Save Preferences button. You can also block a domain by selecting the Don't accelerate this website toolbar menu item when you visit the website in question.
To block all subdomains at a particular site, just enter a "." followed by the common part of the domain name. For example, to block all subdomains at domain.com, just enter ".domain.com" on a separate line and click the Save Preferences button.
When your browser shows a blocked site, you'll see:
* The toolbar menu item Don't accelerate this website has a checkmark next to it.
* The browser speedometer icon is grayed out:
To unblock a domain, you can delete its entry from the Don't Accelerate These Sites text box and click the Save Preferences button, or uncheck the Don't accelerate this website toolbar menu item.
Granted its somewhat of a pain, but as some one who checks every cookie before accepting, it won't be too much of a hassle to type in a few key websites (such as forums, email, eBay/Paypal, etc). All in all, not so bad.
Cheers,
Munk
Edit: On a sidenote, I decided to try it (I wasn't using it prior to this post). After installing it decided to make Firefox crash on every load (I am running the newest official release). Not a big deal, I had to uninstall accelerator, and reinstall firefox, taking all of 3 minutes to complete. Just thought I'd share the (minor) problem.