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Google Accelerator is bad news for Web apps

Cory Doctorow at 7:34 am Fri, May 6, 2005

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Google Accelerator wreaks havoc on Web-apps by "clicking every link" on every control screen in order to cache it -- so it also ends up clicking on "Delete my account" and "Launch pre-emptive nuclear strike," etc.
The accelerator scours a page and prefetches the content behind each link. This gives the illusion of pages loading faster (since they've already been pre-loaded behind the scenes). Here's the problem: Google is essentially clicking every link on the page -- including links like "delete this" or "cancel that." And to make matters worse, Google ignores the Javascript confirmations. So, if you have a "Are you sure you want to delete this?" Javascript confirmation behind that "delete" link, Google ignores it and performs the action anyway.
There's some foo you can add to your Web-app designs to prevent this, but if you haven't patched and your users are using the accelerator, look out! Link (Thanks, Jason!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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