Auto-completion using DNS?
Gervase Markham
"Browser implementers including Microsoft and Mozilla have begun doing
DNS queries while collecting URIs from their graphical front end in
order to do fancy "auto-completion." This means that during the typing
time of a URI such as http://www.cnn.com/, the browser will have asked
questions such as W, WW, WWW, WWW.C, WWW.CN, WWW.CNN, and so on. It's
not quite that bad, since the browsers have a precompiled idea of what
the top-level domains are. They won't actually ask for WWW.C, for
example, but they are now asking for WWW.CN, which is in China, and
WWW.CNN.CO, which is in Colombia."
http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1647302
Are we actually doing this, or is he mistaken?
Gerv
Mike Beltzner
> Are we actually doing this, or is he mistaken?
We are certainly not doing that for "fancy auto completion."
For further information, see https://developer.mozilla.org/en/controlling_dns_prefetching
which implies that prefetching only happens for links and other URIs
in web pages, not for location bar autocomplete.
cheers,
mike
Gervase Markham
> We are certainly not doing that for "fancy auto completion."
I thought not :-)
> For further information, see
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en/controlling_dns_prefetching which
> implies that prefetching only happens for links and other URIs in web
> pages, not for location bar autocomplete.
I think DNS prefetching is entirely reasonable, because they are actual
domains in the page, and not some typed string which may or may not be
one. We aren't going to be bombarding the Columbian DNS servers because
people pause for a second before typing the m of ".com".
So I think he's got the wrong end of the stick here.
Do we know of _anyone_ who is doing what Paul outlines?
Gerv
Mike Beltzner
> On 09/11/09 13:11, Mike Beltzner wrote:
>> We are certainly not doing that for "fancy auto completion."
>
> I thought not :-)
He may be getting himself confused with Google Chrome, which performs
search requests for each character typed. But again, that's not a DNS
request, that's a search request.
> I think DNS prefetching is entirely reasonable, because they are
> actual
> domains in the page, and not some typed string which may or may not be
> one. We aren't going to be bombarding the Columbian DNS servers
> because
> people pause for a second before typing the m of ".com".
Quite. Further, I filed https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481503
a while back to perform DNS prefetches on matches in the Location
Bar. This hasn't been implemented, but again would act like a prefetch
on links, though those links would be ones pulled from the user's
history and bookmarks, not from a web page.
cheers,
mike
>
> So I think he's got the wrong end of the stick here.
>
> Do we know of _anyone_ who is doing what Paul outlines?
>
> Gerv
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Boris Zbarsky
> Are we actually doing this, or is he mistaken?
He is mistaken.
-Boris
Daniel Veditz
> This means that during the typing
> time of a URI such as http://www.cnn.com/, the browser will have asked
> questions such as W, WW, WWW, WWW.C, WWW.CN, WWW.CNN, and so on. It's
> not quite that bad, since the browsers have a precompiled idea of what
> the top-level domains are. They won't actually ask for WWW.C, for
> example, but they are now asking for WWW.CN, which is in China, and
> WWW.CNN.CO, which is in Colombia."
If a user types "paypal" and hits Enter we will try sticking ".com" and
"www." on there, but certainly not while the user is typing.