SPDY : Google wants to make the web twice as fast

Google wants to seriously step on the accelerator for communications between Web servers and browsers. Through their SPDY project, Google is working on the development of a protocol which will perhaps help HTTP with its current hard work.

It appears that for Google, the Web is just marking time rather than powering ahead. Unhappy with its current speed, they have decided to try and speed it up through a new research project started a few months ago. SPDY, pronounced SPeeDY, has the aim of making the Web twice as fast as it currently is.


To assist the hard work being done by HTTP
SPDY is presented as a communications protocol running at the Session layer of the OSI model, while http sends HTML pages across the Application layer (the last). While Google recognises the advantages of the HyperText Transfer Protocol, they are also conscientious of the fact that the protocol became the Web standard in 1996. With SPDY they aren’t looking to reinvent the wheel, but rather give it a push in the right direction. This means that the time has not yet come when you will have to enter web addresses SPDY://www... replacing the current HTTP://www...

According to Google, SPDY has the aim of transporting content across the Web. The protocol specifically targets a reduction in latency time through functions like stream multiplexing, request prioritisation and the compression of HTTP headers.

Tests have already been performed in experimental conditions between a prototype Web server and a Google Chrome browser using the SPDY protocol. According to Google, the first results are encouraging with the web page load time speed being decreased in the order of 55% to some of the worlds most important web sites. It will be interesting to see whether Google is aiming to allow the use of SPDY only with Google Chrome, or whether they will be opening it up to the advantage of other browsers.

The release was made on the official Chromium blog, the open source arm of the browser, with Google pointing interested parties towards the SPDY documentation so that they can leave their comments. The source code to activate SPDY in Google Chrome has been provided, with this to be soon followed by a Web server.

Last June, Google started to make noises about speeding up the web by calling on developers to leave their contributions, with the aim being to bring all of these ideas together. A few different ideas were picked up like the update of the TCP/IP protocol and the AppCache technology in HTML 5 so that developers can write JavaScript heavy web applications which execute quickly. It appears that at this time Google already had the idea of bringing together a project like SPDY.