A screenshot (inadvertently?) shared over on the Chrome bug tracker reveals that Google is working on a native data compression add-on for the Chrome browser called ‘Data Saver’.
In a bug filed by Google and unearthed by the ‘Browsing the Net’ blog, one wiley Chromium developer shared the following screenshot of the add-on with the direction for it to be uploaded to the (hidden) Chrome Web Store listing.
We’ve added the screenshot below and as you can see, it’s looking pretty swish!
Why So Long, Google?
Similar “data compression” features are already available in Google Chrome for Android and iOS, and one assumes that the desktop version will work in a similar way.
The browser takes web content and funnels it through a secure ‘optimisation’ server maintained by Google. Here the size of images, video, HTML, CSS and JavaScript are stripped of needless information and compressed into a more efficient format. The freshly squeezed assets are then passed back to the browser using the efficient SPDY protocol.
It may sound lengthy, but from end-to-end the entire process happens almost instantaneously. And since the feature can reduce data by as much as 50% chances are you’ll notice content load far, far quicker with the feature enabled than without.
An unofficial extension offering compression to desktop users using Google’s “flywheel” proxy debuted in the Web Store last year. Sadly, for all its charm, it’s not without its quirks. That makes this upcoming first party solution from Google all the more anticipated.
Quite when we’ll see the Web Store listing go live isn’t yet known, but it’s clearly not going to be long.