Google Instant - Is it good for environment?
5 comments
Your observations are correct, but I wouldn't worry too much about them.
If you're concerned about the environment, I should point out that Google has a policy of being carbon neutral. Therefore all of the environmental impacts on Google's side have already been offset.
As for developing countries, http://www.google.com/instant/ says that Google autodetects slow connections and turns instant off for them. So the feature should be a non-issue for them - you only get it if your connection is good enough for it to be worthwhile for you. (If you have a fast connection but pay by the megabyte, there is an option to turn it off as well.)
If you're concerned about the environment, I should point out that Google has a policy of being carbon neutral. Therefore all of the environmental impacts on Google's side have already been offset.
As for developing countries, http://www.google.com/instant/ says that Google autodetects slow connections and turns instant off for them. So the feature should be a non-issue for them - you only get it if your connection is good enough for it to be worthwhile for you. (If you have a fast connection but pay by the megabyte, there is an option to turn it off as well.)
Tbh, this is far too complex to just look at bandwidth...
On your side, not only is it more bandwidth, but it's more CPU time on their servers, granted I'm sure the shorter the search is, the more the raw search data is cached (not a static output cache, so it still is customizable on-the-fly).
On the other hand, the amount of time spent searching on the Google scale is so much less that it could honestly end up saving energy. 350 million hours of user time per year saved is a VERY impressive projection, that could mitigate the costs pretty significantly, especially for users who refine searches multiple times anyway.
On your side, not only is it more bandwidth, but it's more CPU time on their servers, granted I'm sure the shorter the search is, the more the raw search data is cached (not a static output cache, so it still is customizable on-the-fly).
On the other hand, the amount of time spent searching on the Google scale is so much less that it could honestly end up saving energy. 350 million hours of user time per year saved is a VERY impressive projection, that could mitigate the costs pretty significantly, especially for users who refine searches multiple times anyway.
This indeed correct, If you see consumption in terms of KBs they are not significant 20-100kb, but you see in terms of multiples, 2-4X bandwidth consumption will be very significant considering Google search having very higher network consumption world-wide.
That's an interesting observation
see - http://www.twitpic.com/30o2cv/full
I had searched for "google videos", total bandwidth consumed - - Without Google instant-9k, With Google instant-49k (5 times normal search)
Is it good for environment?
If more bandwidth is consumed means more resources are consumed which adversely affects the environmental.
After Google Instant lot of other websites are implementing the instant versions which can deteriorate the situation further.
One more issue, in developing countries bandwidth is very precious, people have to pay lot for low bandwidth.
Is the instant search feature good for developing nations (with limited internet resources)?
Is the instant search feature good for environment?