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Microsoft joins Google in the race to speed up the web

By Lena Sullivan / AP 03/28/2012 19:20:00

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The company wants to replace HTTP with a newer, faster version

The Internet Engineering Task Force is meeting this week to discuss the future of the internet, and ways to make it faster and more responsive. If Microsoft has anything to say about it, that future will involve the replacement of the familiar HTTP standard with something much faster.

The existing HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) is the computer language by which computers communicate with each other on the web. It's been the workhorse of the internet for over 15 years, but with the internet having evolved so much since, it's generally agreed by tech experts that a more modern, faster approach is needed — an HTTP 2.0, if you will.

Already, Google has proposed a replacement for the HTTP standard named SPDY (short for SPeeDY) that would boost the speed of the web by 50%. The new Microsoft standard, which lacks a marketing-friendly name, isn't necessarily a competitor with Google's proposed standard, but a complement to it. It would go a step beyond web browsers, focusing on optimizing the internet for mobile apps as well. There's no schedule for implementation of the new standard, so a faster web may still be a long time away.

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