Is Google's Web Accelerator nearing re-release? I've been seeing big changes with this product that's been running with the headlights off for the last three months.

Now here's a Google product that's vanished from everyone's radar. Remember when Google launched its Web Accelerator way back in early May of this year? Remember how the Google Blog announced GWA with a cute sing-song post? And then the blogosphere erupted in a firestorm of fears that all web traffic would now be routed through Google servers? Oh, and the product's cache allegedly allowed secure sites to be viewed by strangers.

At the time, buygoogle opined that GWA was a Really Big Deal that marked a tectonic shift in the architecture of the internet - not just a trivial toy as Google's PR would spin it. This was a project that played to Google's strengths in large-scale distributed computing, and would deliver lasting competitive advantage as Google moved toward serving video and Google TV.

Two days after its release and the big PR hit, the GWA beta was closed -- allegedly oversubscribed. It remains closed to this day, and Google's been silent on the product since May.

But my copy of GWA is still working. And it's been working much, much better in the last week or so. For most of the last three months, GWA showed little dicernable benefits for weeks at a time, and would even show as "disconnected" more often than not. But in the last week, the code on my machine has auto-updated with a new version and my "hours saved" clock is moving up again. The service is now "active" almost all the time, even when I'm behind a NAT (it didn't used to work with the NAT).

Load Time for 40743 Pages
Without Google Web Accelerator: 4.4 days
With Google Web Accelerator: 4.1 days
Total Time Saved: 7.1 hrs

So the product is still alive, and with the recent updates, could it be released again in the near future? If so, it's time to start thinking about its implications. Here are some of the old links:

• First released -- is this another component of the Google Grid?
• If Google would put their brand at risk for GWA, it must be a Very Big Deal.
• Cringely's the only other voice I hear calling GWA an internet earthquake that just changed the rules of the game
• It's a Big Deal, part 3
• GWA might do what Microsoft can't -- deliver Google TV

With Microsoft trying to match Google's every move and then bringing in the lawyers to slow Google down, GWA is one area where Google's web market share, engineering talent and trusted brand give it a distinct advantage.