Another day, another new feature. Google WebAccelerator, the latest Labs project, grabs control of your browser's navigation commands and loads Web pages faster. That's the promise, anyway. Google even provides a sort of Internet odometer that tracks how much time you've saved. After the first flush of testing, I saved 4.1 seconds while surfing 163 pages. I chose heavy documents like news portals (CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, etc.), and afterthe first  100 pages Google reported no speed increase. Then I turned on the prefetching feature (I had turned it off first thing, not being a fan of prefetching) and went to Google.com. Clicking through to search results, I began accumulating saved fractions of seconds. Interestingly, Google clocked saved time when I used the Back button; apparently Google thinks the WebAccelerator does a better job caching than my browser.

Caching is part of the Web Accelerator's technique, of course, along with prefetching, compressing, and "managing your Internet connection." Yikes. You know that feeling when somebody stands too close to you? That's how WebACcelerator makes me feel. Anyway, you can easily turn this thing on and off, and keep a list of domains at which it will not operate. You can also uninstall it, of course. Google says the WebAccelerator is designed for high-speed connections, and won't help dial-up users much. I tested over a 4Mbps residential cable connection, and the improvement was negligable both to my eye and according to the WebAccelerator timekeeper. But, I suppose it would add up over days and weeks. However, I'm not comfortable enough with prefetching to use it regularly.