Google Wants to Speed up the Web with Revised Protocols

Google, in its constant quest of speeding up the internet so they can deliver more ads, wants to revise the TCP protocol.

The TCP protocol, created in the 1970’s by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, is the backbone of the internet. Any time you load a website, or a website loads additional content, it relies on the TCP protocol to get it. But there’s a problem: the protocol hasn’t seen too many revisions since its initial release. As fast as the internet seems, there is some serious inefficiency. That is what Google wants to address.

Google has proposed a series of changes to TCP designed to let multiple requests be sent at once and improve the way that packet routing works. In addition, the company’s tweaks would improve the handling of lost packets, something that happens fairly often.

Each of these could do lots to improve network speeds, but they could also have untold repercussions. The web is a massive thing, and when you iterate something on that scale, you run the risk of exacerbating a small problem into a big one.

Another thing that Google is working on to improve the speed of the web is the appropriately called SPDY. Originally a proprietary protocol put into Chrome to improve the performance of Google services, SPDY is an HTTP replacement. It has begun to see some popular support, however, with Firefox 11 and Amazon’s Silk browsers both boasting support for it.

In fact, the uptake has been great enough that the IETF's HTTPbis Working Group, who maintain and update the HTTP protocol, are considering making a new protocol, HTTP/2.0. And thanks to its popularity, Google’s SPDY is a chief contender of replacement technologies.

ars technica Photo by : Carlos Luna