MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google has begun testing a new technology called QUIC that CNET says “seeks to marry security, reliability and performance.”
Google has built QUIC into developer versions of Chrome and made it functional for a minority of users. The company hopes to reduce the time of round-trip communications between computers online, says Google engineer Jim Roskind in a recent blog post.
“Users shouldn't notice any difference — except hopefully a faster load time,” Roskind wrote. “If we're able to identify clear performance wins, our hope is to collaborate with the rest of the community to develop the features and techniques of QUIC into network standards.”
QUIC stands for Quick UDP Internet Connection.
According to CNET, the goal of the technology is simple: to lower delays and make websites and services respond faster. That would draw more people online and ultimately, onto Google.
Some of QUIC’s highlights noted in the blog include high security; fast connectivity; packet pacing to reduce packet loss; packet error correction to reduce retransmission latency; UDP transport to avoid TCP head-of-line blocking; a connection identifier to reduce reconnections for mobile clients and a pluggable congestion control mechanism.