[webkit-gtk] dns prefetching knob

[Dan Winship]

On 03/09/2011 07:55 AM, Marco Peereboom wrote:
> For some reason
> people are still attached to this relic of the modem era.  DNS prefetch
> is optional in the HTTP spec and the time has come to admit that it no
> longer serves a purpose.  Back in the day when modems were king and DNS
> lookups were expensive you could save some time when a user clicked on a
> link.  Times have changes and the web has evolved.

Prefetch isn't mentioned in the HTTP spec at all. And I don't think
anyone was doing it back in the modem age. AFAIK, Google started doing
it with Chrome, and other people followed.

It *does* help in some cases. Lots of sites have lame slow DNS servers
(and lots of ISPs have lame slow recursive resolvers). We just don't
want to try to pre-resolve every single link on the page.

-- Dan