Google to launch new feature in India to load webpages faster on slower connections
The feature will be rolled out in India in the next two weeks, and will be available to users when they search on a Chrome or Android browser.
By Neha Alawadhi, ET Bureau | Updated:
NEW DELHI: To help people on slower data connections such as 2G load webpages faster on their mobile devices in India, Brazil and Indonesia,Google launched a new feature which will also help save data for the users in these countries.
The feature will be rolled out in India in the next two weeks, before the end of June, and will be available to users when they search on a Chrome or Android browser from Google’s search results.
“Google is making various efforts to give users a better experience on slow networks. In October, we made efforts to make search lighter for India and Brazil…but it only making search lighter doesn’t work if a user clicks on a link and it doesn’t load,” said Google search product manager Hiroto Tokusei.
The feature gets triggered when a network connection is very, very slow, such as 2G, he added.
The India launch follows field tests Google conducted in Indonesia over the last month for streamlined search results and optimized pages when the user searches on slow mobile connections. The light pages load four times faster and use 80% less data, while increasing the traffic to webpages by more than 50%.
Late last month, at its annual developer conference Google I/O 2015, the company said it was going to pilot a new feature on the Chrome Android browser to tackle slow internet speeds in India. The feature would evaluate the quality of the user's mobile Internet connection and moderately change the way the result page appears to the user.
“Some stylesheets…having high image quality take more data on a slow network. These are compressed using the new feature, and sometimes the page looks slightly different,” said Tokusei. Website publishers can however, opt out of the feature and their pages will not be optimised. Users can also choose to see the original webpage if they so desire.
India is a strategic market for companies like Google and Facebook, given that the Internet user base is expected to grow to 550 million by 2018.
The feature will be rolled out in India in the next two weeks, before the end of June, and will be available to users when they search on a Chrome or Android browser from Google’s search results.
“Google is making various efforts to give users a better experience on slow networks. In October, we made efforts to make search lighter for India and Brazil…but it only making search lighter doesn’t work if a user clicks on a link and it doesn’t load,” said Google search product manager Hiroto Tokusei.
The feature gets triggered when a network connection is very, very slow, such as 2G, he added.
The India launch follows field tests Google conducted in Indonesia over the last month for streamlined search results and optimized pages when the user searches on slow mobile connections. The light pages load four times faster and use 80% less data, while increasing the traffic to webpages by more than 50%.
Late last month, at its annual developer conference Google I/O 2015, the company said it was going to pilot a new feature on the Chrome Android browser to tackle slow internet speeds in India. The feature would evaluate the quality of the user's mobile Internet connection and moderately change the way the result page appears to the user.
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“Some stylesheets…having high image quality take more data on a slow network. These are compressed using the new feature, and sometimes the page looks slightly different,” said Tokusei. Website publishers can however, opt out of the feature and their pages will not be optimised. Users can also choose to see the original webpage if they so desire.
India is a strategic market for companies like Google and Facebook, given that the Internet user base is expected to grow to 550 million by 2018.
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When you type in a flight number (eg: 6E 322, for Indigo 322 from Guwahati to Mumbai via Kolkata), Google will instantly tell you what time it left the origin, expected arrival time and other info like terminal/gate (if available). Check this when you’re going to receive someone at the airport.
Book hotels:Type in any hotel name & city to see a list of competitive room rates and ratings. You can click through to read reviews and if you know which hotel you want, proceed straight to checking the availability and booking your room.
Convert anything: The conversion engine is powerful. If you need instant currency conversions with the latest market rates, just type it. For instance, you can type 550 GBP to INR for Pounds to Indian Rupees. Or 100 USD to INR for US Dollars. If you don’t know the currency code, you can also get results by typing 100 US dollars to Indian Rupees. The same works for all sorts of unit conversions too.
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