Why Google Scares Bill Gates

[Natoma]

Gates vs Google: Search and Destroy

Some damn good nuggets of inside info on how Microsoft first scoffed at google internally, then tried, and failed, to put them out of business.

They even considered buying google in 2003.

 

[3dilettante]

It's kind of funny, but Microsoft could actually leverage a security advantage over Google's new services.

Google's latest accellerator is evidence of this, as its caching has been manipulated to reveal entries that were supposed to be private.

Online data transmission and authorization is even more of a mess than MS software.

 

[Natoma]

Really? Got any good links on that? I downloaded the web accelerator for shits and giggles yesterday. So far it's told me that it's saved me 13.6 minutes out of 2.8 hours worth of browsing, meaning 0.3 hours. Frankly I can't much tell the difference. But if the app says it has saved me all that time, it MUST be true!

 

[RussSchultz]

I must have this for work, so I can get more work done when browsing.

 

[Farid]

Here is Webaccelerator:
http://webaccelerator.google.com/

But before testing it, you ought to read this, just in case:
ZDNet on the subject

However, users are concerned that the service can cache more data from their computers than they would prefer.

On a Google Labs discussion group, one user said that the security implications of Google caching details of Internet sessions were unacceptable.

"I went to the Futuremark forums and noticed that I'm logged in as someone I don't know. Great, I've used Google's Web Accelerator for a couple of hours, visited lots of sites where I'm logged in. Now I wonder how many people used my cache. I understand it's a beta, sure, but something like that is totally unacceptable

 

[digitalwanderer]

The biggest reason M$ is scared of Google is because Google is nice...

 

[Natoma]

Hmm. I'm up to 3.3 browsed hours (1504 pages loaded), 14.3 minutes saved. I haven't seen any of those problems yet. I'll definitely report them here if I do though.

 

[Frank]

Gates vs Google: Search and Destroy

Some damn good nuggets of inside info on how Microsoft first scoffed at google internally, then tried, and failed, to put them out of business.

They even considered buying google in 2003.

Great read.

And while I was still in doubt what was up with the immense lethargy at Microsoft for the last few years, this article makes it crystal clear: they've become a beurocratic moloch at last. They're goners.

Palladium made me suspect that, but this proves it without a doubt in my mind.

Imagine: they think development of a search engine takes hundreds of millions and a staff of more than 500 people, just for starters.

You do new projects with small teams, of a few people with lots of freedom and little management interference, if you want it to be succesful. You DON'T start by building the bureaucracy needed for a personal fiefdom. Inventive, new projects thrive on personal freedom and open-minded artists and engineers, who get the opportunity to make a difference.

 

[3dilettante]

The service caches a lot of session data along with the pages.

Some people have posited that part of the problem is the service being based on http, which is stateless and as such is pretty wide open to exploits.

The admins of a forum I occassionally look at are working on forbidding google from caching their forum, since people had already found ways of loading cached private messages.

edit: Just for reference, here's a quick writeup by the proprietor of somethingawful.

He's pretty steamed, so I won't go into much of the rant, but there are screenshots of some portions of their forums being compromised.

http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2858

 

[_xxx_]

Hmm. I'm up to 3.3 browsed hours (1504 pages loaded), 14.3 minutes saved. I haven't seen any of those problems yet. I'll definitely report them here if I do though.

Now they own you!

 

[epicstruggle]

The biggest reason M$ is scared of Google is because Google is nice...

For how long? Google is a business with shareholders who expect them now to make a profit quarter after quarter. Dont kid yourself if at some point they dont turn "evil".

I dare say they have more information about you then anyone else. Does that worry you? If echelon (?) scared you, you should worry about google too.

epic