As the web matures, it’s also getting more complex. Yet much of it is still fundamentally based on things like HTML which are 30 years old. A new startup, FasterWeb, aims to bring these old technologies up to speed — as it were — making the web faster, by optimizing the old standards for doing new things. And in doing so, it claims that it can increase the performance of any site by 2 to 10 times — something which would obviously be a huge leap forward, if it can deliver.
One VC firm, YL Ventures, believes that it can. And they’ve seen it in action, so we’ll just have to take their word for it, for now. We spoke with Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf, managing parter at YL, and he tells us that the different between the regular web versus a site optimized with FasterWeb, is pretty staggering. And that’s why his firm had no hesitation in pouring an undisclosed amount of money into the Israel-based venture.
So how does FasterWeb claim to work? Leitersdorf wouldn’t go into the details, saying that’s the company’s secret, but he would say that it uses 45 different techniques to optimize the web. He also said that this is done either on the end of the content provider or the ISP. In other words, the end user doesn’t have to do a thing to experience the increase in web speed. And FasterWeb will work across all the major web browsers, starting with Internet Explorer and Firefox immediately, and expanding to the rest, including Opera, Chrome and Safari, when it’s ready for its widespread release next year.
But some sites won’t have to wait until next year to get the speed boost. Over the next several weeks, the first sites optimized with FasterWeb will begin hitting our browsers, Leitersdorf says. He would not say which ones, but notes that some will be known entities in the U.S. and worldwide.
And all of this will work for the mobile web too. “That’s one of the biggest opportunities here,” Leitersdorf says. He went on to note that they’re thinking a lot about mobile ISPs in particular.
Obviously, a two to tenfold increase in speed is a big difference, but Leitersdorf notes that the more complex a page is, the higher the magnitude of optimization will be. This optimization occurs across HTTP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS and images on a page, to achieve the results.
The business model for the project seems sound as well. FasterWeb has a multi-pronged approach depending on the situation of the website or ISP. That means it can either charge a one-time fee, or do a revenue sharing model. “What we found out as a VC fund going into this business is that by selling this to websites, it’s going to increase their revenues. And these sites are willing to spend 20-30% of their increase in revenues on our solution,” Leitersdorf says.
He also notes that in their research, YL only found two companies even come close to doing what these guys are doing. But Leitersdorf declined to name them. Seeing as this is all on the backend, and requires nothing from the consumers, it seems safe to assume this will be significantly better than something like the Google Web Accelerator toolbar.
Naturally, all of this sounds great, but it will be another thing to deliver on a massive scale across much of the web. “We’ve talked to the customers, they’re excited. But FasterWeb wants to make sure they’re ready,” according to Leitersdorf. And that’s why we won’t see wide-scale deployment until next year.
The Israel-based FasterWeb was started by Ofer Gadish, Gil Shai, Ofir Ehrlich and Leonid Fainberg.
how much?
Sounds good. I’d like give it a try, to see how fast it works.
Keep up the good work guys!
I wish you all the best
are they selling to isp’s or those with a website?
Both.
Are these “optimizations” things that YSlow already tells me how to do?
There are only a few ways to make websites faster:
1. Transfer less data
2. Transfer the same data in chunks of optimum size
3. Transfer the data through faster connections
4. Compress the data (but not too much, or the processing time will eat up the time savings)
It’s impossible for them to do #3 and #1 through #4 are already practiced. If a site is completely optimized already, I wonder how much time they would save? Are they just re-engineering existing sites that were written by inexperienced developers?
Very interesting.
Interesting, not to say weird… this all article smells off…
Well here’s the first problem,
“An Israel-based company”
yeah, it’s better you stay off israeli products, we really want you to not use any product created in israel.
btw, if you get parkinson – please don’t use Teva’s anti parkinson drug, it was also used in israel, and we really don’t want you to use it.
btw2, if you want to send an instant message with you friend – don’t, israeli ICQ invented that.. and we really don’t want you to use it.
btw3, Next time you open you computer, don’t. your x86 cpu was probably designed in Intel Haifa – yes by israelis. and as i said – we really don’t want you to use our technology.
problem solved?
Written by Eytan L. – an israeli company owner.
An anti-parkinson drug… hmm this is scientific news to me and should be to the rest of the world.
There is no such thing as an “anti-parkinsons” drug. Lol.
Sure an Israeli company may have started (the now defunct) ICQ, but it doesn’t mean they invented the technology.
Stop being an arrogant POS, because frankly, Israelis hardly contribute anything useful to the grand scheme of things.
Written by Hanabanabingbang – an American.
atrogant point of sale? retalix?
Acronym fail.
“There is no such thing as an “anti-parkinsons” drug. Lol.”
http://en.wikip...wiki/Ropinirole
@john – dude dont u think its ridiculous of u to generalize israeli companies like this??? i dont happen to b frm israel (m frm india) but u jus cant generalize like this, especially wid tech cos
n btw israeli minds have given us some awesome inventions… icq da first really popular IM, drip irrigation (israelis use 99% of da rains they rec), cornershot – dat amazing machine gun with angular views which btw ur FBI is using, some of da most advanced radars n bomb detection tools which are being used at airports n hotels across da world, da list can go on…
I get it that you’re probably some text messaging guru on your cell phone. But online, how about you actually spell out your words?
u = you
b = be
frm = from
m = I am
jus = just
wid = with
cos = because
n = and
da = the
rec = receive
dat = that
ur = your
Maybe you’re 12 years old and just don’t know any better, but you come across as immature and uneducated when you write like that.
ITT: indignant israelis
Always happy to see talented people do a great job
Keep up the good work!
Good effort.
Until then Apache gzip compression, delivering java scripts from different domains, and other suggestions by the Yslow guys can make web faster.
“Yet much of it is still fundamentally based on things like HTML which are 30 years old”.
WTH is that supposed to mean? Sounds like a bunch of marketing riff-raff.
Honestly, anyone using IE can make the web faster by switching to Chrome or Safari, basically any Webkit-based browser.
might also want to uninstall hotbar
What exactly is supposed to be 30 years old about the web, anyway? HTML, specifically mentioned, certainly isn’t. Nor is HTTP. Both were developed in the early ’90s, and since it’s the late ’00s, I’m not sure when these supposedly older technologies were supposed to have happened.
I suppose TCP/IP is, but I’m pretty sure any implementation that’s supposed to work with existing browsers is going to use that.
I hope it’s not going to do funky stuff like compressing HTML and JavaScript files into human-unreadable garbage. It may save a little bandwidth and speed up download time, but that’s a fundamental change to how the web works. Imagine trying to write a Greasemonkey script for your browser when you can’t even follow the HTML structure of a webpage you want to hook into.
Yeah I was wondering that.
As a web developer I don’t want the isp messing with my code.
I suspect this will run some sort of js and css minimizer and gzip compression.
I would also guess cutting down http connections to a million external files is part of thier system.
Not to mention that’s probably a copyright violation if done at the ISP level. If a company does this to their own site, that’s fine, but re-writing the final content is overstepping their bounds. It would be derivative work.
I agree.
ISP’s should NOT be allowed to alter the bits I’m sending from my site to my customer’s computer.
Think about the can of worms that this opens.
Good luck, sounds great.
Does it accelerate streaming as well or just HTML/CSS/JavaScript etc. ?
I’m going to remain cautiously optimistic.
Id be willing to bet its on a similar model of the now defunct GameRail ( http://en.wikip...g/wiki/Gamerail )
Essentially it would find the fastest possible connection between a website and a user and likely use their proprietary network.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t account for much.
Anyone who understands how the web serving process works knows that there is only 4 options to obtain speed:
* Optimize the server to send as fast as possible
* Optimize the connection and distance between you and the customer
* Optimize the end users computer
* Compress the transmission
Those are the only options available to you. There isn’t some “secret” magic bullet which will somehow make any one of those things not matter.
My guess is its a bundle of the above, with a focus on providing “mirrors” or being a virtual memcache style system.
They likely use their own servers, and do a extensive cache system- Of course in this current time of a seriously dynamic web, they couldnt possible cache everything. Not to mention that even attempting to cache some data could really screw things up.
But you could see how they might claim it would work. If they had it running for techcrunch, they would simply cache the various pages and mirror them on a large network of servers across the country and then serve the content in a “cached” state from the closest server to the user.
As I said before, I am interested in seeing how they could possibly tackle the issue of truely dynamic content. While this might work for a content producing site ( fox.com for example ) , Its a totally different ballgame for sites with UGC, or sites that require logins to view data. You cant cache something that changes for each user without mirroring the server power of the source site – which could get expensive.
Even in case of web sites that needs authentication to display user-specific data, most of the content (templates, assets) is not user-dependant, so it could be cached.
And yes, I think that basically the solution consists in caching the content of their customers (lazy caching = caching as soon as it is requested the first time) on their servers spreaded across the globe (in a cloud system) so that the user will get it from the nearest one.
This, mixed with a cocktail of gzip compression, image sprites, and other standard best practices that any well designed website should implement.
I’m really curious to see it in action.
See my comment below about proxy servers. If FasterWeb is just a super intelligent transforming proxy server then they are actually able to “become the server” and solve 3 out of 4 of your bullet points:
* Optimize the server to send as fast as possible
* Optimize the connection and distance between you and the customer
* Compress the transmission
And I suspect they didn’t stop there. Once you “are the server” by proxy, it becomes much easier to implement your own protocol or other acceleration scheme.
Their lack of support for all browsers suggests they are using some client-side magic…on top of their proxying infrastructure.
At least…that’s what I would do.
About caching:
What you propose is no different than what some CDNs like Akamai already do: cache static content. If you do not wish you content to be cached, your responsibility as a developer is to make that clear as part of the HTTP response (pragma no-cache and all that).
Stopped reading at “Israeli-based venture”
Why?
That’s like saying “I stopped my car.” So what? No context means no content.
Did you stop your car because it was a red light or because you intentionally ran over someone of a race you don’t like because you are a fucking racist?
See my point? Help us understand you. Give your posting some value.
what exactly is the problem with Israeli based ventures?
Now,now. Let’s give him some slack. he’s probably from somewhere in the southern states and we all know that southerners are mostly retarded.
Just wave a shiny bible in front of his face and he’ll be as calm as a kitten.
(Side note: I apologize to all retarded people for the comparison)
“Israeli based ventures” means occupation, death and destruction which is why many of us don’t want anything to do with them. No racism, no southern states bible reading, no retardation – just basic morality.
So the entire staff of this company, most of them probably born in Israel long after 1948, should spend most of their life savings and uproot themselves from their surroundings to move somewhere else, just because you and some other people happen to disagree with the legitimacy of their country?
Actually, considering the fact that America is an evil nation because all Americans enthusiastically agree with George W. Bush’s anti-Muslim imperialist policies, that attitude makes perfect sense.
Hmm, I hope you aren’t living in any developed nation, as almost all of them have profited off of such things.
Do you avoid American products for the trail of tears? Japanese products for Pearl Harbour? French products for Napoleon?
Agree with Stephen. Israel is a racist, apartheid society that needs to be replaced with a secular, democratic government with rights for all its citizens.
Why don’t you create a secular democratic state in Jordon where you are the majority and stop terrorizing Israelis and Palestinians with your radical Islamic groups like Hamas
Why didn’t you create a secular democratic state between 1948-1969 when Jordon and Eygpt occupied the West Bank and Gaza?
Why not make such demands from yourselves and from your Arab brothers before requesting it from Israel?
Good riddance.
Here’s my guess for how it works;
1) It sits in front of the HTML output on a server (i.e. after the page is finished processing & is about to be sent to the user).
2) It reads all the css, js & images linked from the page.
3) It rewrites the urls to a single location for each file type (this is tricky for images – css sprites could be used for some images, but there are some cases where that breaks down… still for standard images you can make a pretty good whack at it).
4) It delivers the rewritten urls in a compressed format.
For bonus marks they could even be including the data directly via the data: scheme for modern browsers if they predict the visitor isn’t going to return (or only on the first page load).
The only way to improve speed like that without improving infrastructure is to reduce the number of HTTP calls.
You’d have issues with figuring out how to package the content, you don’t really want to download al the data again for each page you visit on the same site since all the repeated content is bundled up. I guess you could stick some statistical analysis on top of the requests & optimise your bundles that way… interesting.
Interesting stuff. I’ve wondered why no one has done this before. You’re not going to be able to optimise as good as a developer who knows what he’s doing, but 2x-10x improvements on most sites does sound likely.
I think you’re on the right track. My guess: it’s a content transforming proxy server.
For a given website it could be installed as a reverse proxy. In a case where they license it to an ISP it would be installed as a forwarding proxy. Since the ISP can arbitrarily send all HTTP traffic through the proxy users would not need to change any settings to get the speed boost.
One of the reasons they are thinking about mobile providers in particular: mobile networks have been using content transforming proxies for years now so they are “primed” customers.
Proxies are being used in increasingly creative ways to optimize web app delivery. FasterWeb seems like a natural next step for content providers and ISPs.
I’d be interested in licensing their technology for a project I’m working on!
sounds like vapor ware to me. they’re probably selling a list of 45 instructions
There are companies like FlashNetworks and ByteMobile that have been doing this for years with TCP and HTTP compression or protocol optimization technologies. And then there are CDNs. Nothing new, nothing interesting. My bullshit detector is reading 11.
Sounds like runtime page optimzer: http://www.aptimize.com/
No- not affiliated.
As an earlier poster mentioned, sounds like they’re compressing all resource files into smaller bundle(s) – reducing number of calls and overall download size.
A sad hack, considering our browsers and servers should be doing this for us already (but very useful).
they built their business on the knowledge of :
1- O’Reilly : even faster web sites > the research of google employee steve souders and others
2- O’Reilly : web optimization .
if webmasters read this books we will not need faster web if my guess’s true , and if they are building plugins for faster web , they will hardly be adopted
Good luck guys!
proofs or it didn’t happen
sounds and feels like it will be a variation on what opera has attempted to do…but it still won’t matter for most small sites running on shared servers – good luck getting mediatemple, dreamhost and others to lift a finger to improve back end service for calls and objects, just can’t see it happening…and let’s not even discuss how this will – if effective – create a real divide between access haves and havenots (on the delivery/content side)
Sounds promising! Well we’ll probably see how it works when the day comes.
It will probably do one of the following:
1. substitute its own ads (smaller, faster) for yours.
2. Freeze Prices (a la WalMart) so your site doesn’t have to make complex price calculations.
3. s/Windows/Linux/g
This is possibly the least informative article I’ve read on TechCrunch. You’re parroting the words of a VC investor who obviously wants the product to succeed. He also hides a LOT of useful information which you as a journalist should be finding more about.
What’s the point of writing about this company at all when all you have are the words of an investor, and no technical details whatsoever?
couldn’t agree more. sounds like a straight passthru of a press release.
You mean like NetScaler or F5? Come on– this stuff is already bringing in lots of revenue elsewhere.
great company with great investors
keep up the good work !
Dear Israeli company, I have 2Mb DSL internet connection at my home. Will your technology increase my connection bandwidth 2-10 times? Or this is just content delivery optimization bs? Thank you.
I’m sorry, but “optimizing” for web won’t mean smaller SWF or ZIP files. And since those are the two biggest files on the internet, I think no amount of “optimizing code” will speed up anyone’s experience significantly. The key to a better experience is faster download speeds from the ISPs…so unless this person/firm is talking about making all ISPs offer DSL/Cable modem speeds available to everyone in the country (and not via crappy, expensive satellite services), then he’s not worth listening to.
stevesouders.com
http://sites.go...aster-web-sites
Looks like somebody went to a Steve Souders lecture, put it all his assets into a tidy airplane like black box, and tried to get somebody to invest in it.
Guess what? The rest of the world knows too. Especially the open source world. Expect to be deprecated and to lose your millions stat.
Taking somebody else’s ideas, making them closed source as a hardware or SaaS and trying to keep it a secret is impossible.
BUSTED my Israeli friend.
Now you can invest in those cutsie knee high socks instead.
stevesouders.com
http://sites.go...30;..-web-sites
Looks like somebody went to a Steve Souders lecture, put it all his assets into a tidy airplane like black box, and tried to get somebody to invest in it.
Guess what? The rest of the world knows too. Especially the open source world. Expect to be deprecated and to lose your millions stat.
Note to copy editor: That would be “Israel-based venture” or “Israeli-venture.”
An “Israeli-based venture” would be a company established inside the body of an Israeli person, and while that would make a very interesting science fiction story, I doubt it’s what’s actually happening in reality.
Sorry, that’s “Israeli venture.” No hyphen. I don’t have an edit button, but I’m sure you do, Mr. Siegler.
Enough with the Isreali comparing already, yeah?
Is this even possible?
It doesn’t matter where the company is based. If you trust someone to diddle with your code, and they refuse to tell you what they’re going to do with it, then that’s called a scam, by any measure.
That’s like taking your car to a mechanic, and he “fixes” it for a fee, but won’t tell you what he did to it. Oh, and he didn’t tell you what the fee was until after he “fixed” your car.
These are the sure and classic signs of a scam.
this post is not informative at all…
“A: Hey, I’ve got a site that delivers cheeseburgers through your LCD screen…
B: cool, how does it work?…
A: Well, I’m not going to go into details… but it’s awesome..”
this is why you interview company founders….
Lol well put. More vapid VC- and startup-fluffing from Techcrunch
Here’s a guess: Copy Digital Fountain LDPC codes… used in everything but web transport- satellite, cellular, etc.
You make one request – and the entire page is encoded into “symbols” and delivered as UDP “at line speed”
Issue is you need to use a geo-local proxy at your ISP to do recreate the file, OR you’d need a browser plugin.
This is the basis for the TCP+ type stuff I mentioned above (Flash Networks & Bytemobile). You can check their sites to see that they work already with Satellite and Cellular ISPs (mobile operators). With a client you can get closer to 10x download speed and without more like 2 or 3x. What’s odd is that a small investment from a boutique investment fund (15m USD under management), merits TC attention.
Israel=Far East=Clueless……….enuff said !
damn i meant middle east……..i’m clueless myself
this is like the 10th company this month that has promised faster speeds …
nothing seem to be happening …
if anything … speeds are getting slow and ISPs are capping bandwith …
not good …
If this is the 10th company this month, only 20 days in, then you might want to give these 10 companies a bit of time to make their dreams a reality. It takes time to take on such an extreme task as making the world wide web as its full entity, ten times faster, let alone two times the speed.
Give it time, man.
Interesting story. Can’t wait to see how successful they become. Only time will tell.
It is true though, HTML is getting quite old.
This story has been posted on http://www.bfn.im.
This is probably just using the cloud to precache sites and serving a page that pushes that static content versus any current page. This is offered by many companies and is a waste of server space.
Sounds like TCP acceleration to me, and lots of people can do that.
Congrats guys!!!
whats the point of an article when we can only go and checkout the vc company? Have fasterweb got a website?
someone else mentioned http://www.aptimize.com – the company i use to work for put it on their 36 websites – increased performance significantly, it was like night and day. HTML may be getting old but its taken us a long time to address getting the best from it, maybe we just need to give that some attention…. i love html man!
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