Well I’ll “Like” That, Facebook!

As a growing fanatic of Google’s SPDY protocol and its adoption throughout the web, I wondered if there were a way I could get Chrome, when opening a site, in the address bar as it does with HTTPS, to indicate if the site’s using SPDY with something simple that represents movement and quickness, like a lightning bolt, one that turns green when detecting SPDY perhaps. I’m just curious who’s gotten with the program and lit up SPDY and also who’s snubbed progress, and how that evolves over time.

Turns out someone made a Chrome extension that does just that, efficiently dubbed SPDY indicator. Turns out, in spite of its heavy ties to Microsoft (Microsoft copied SPDY in an effort to make a watered-down less-secure competing protocol weirdly named Microsoft S+M), Facebook uses SPDY as depicted in the attached manipulated screen shot. With exception to Youtube, much of Google uses it of course. I look forward to seeing it light up green on this site, gotta get an SSL certificate first though..

And if you want to know whether or not a site’s using Google Analytics in a similar fashion, like “consumer watchdog” groups that criticize Google for invading everyone’s privacy while actually using Google Analytics on their own site (possibly for the irony), this does the trick nicely.

I never said it was going to be a good article. It’s Friday, c’mon.

Doug Simmons