Strangeloop enables faster downloads for Apple, Android, Microsoft smartphones

Network World - Strangeloop is coming out with a Web-site optimizer that speeds up page builds on mobile devices based on Apple, Android and Microsoft operating systems.

Mobile Site Optimizer reduces load times for Web sites by addressing time-consuming functions that are specific to mobile devices, particularly cellphones. These smaller devices have more limited processing and storage than more powerful tablets, the company notes.

QUIZ: The big, bad browser quiz

The company claims the product can make pages load 2.5 times faster on an iPad and 3.5 times faster on an iPhone 4 if the site has been visited before.

The company already makes Site Optimizer, which speeds up Web sites by analyzing them and creating templates for how the pages should be rewritten for particular browsers so the download as quickly as possible.

But the product didn't take into account factors unique to wireless devices that can slow page downloads on smartphones and tablets, says Strangeloop President Joshua Bixby.

For example, Mobile Site Optimizer employs an HTML5 feature called supercache that lets browsers store Web objects even if the phone is turned off and turned back on again. The cached items don't have to be downloaded, so build time is reduced.

Separately, when a Web site signals to a mobile browser that it is waiting for a mouse-click response, the device has to perform a time-consuming screen tap-to-mouse click conversion to communicate the response to the browser. Mobile Site Optimizer bypasses the conversion so the screen tap is communicated directly, Bixby says.

The new product can also impose unilateral service-level agreements (SLA) on third-party page elements. So if a page is supposed to include a tracker, Mobile Site Optimizer can put the tracker download on hold when it takes longer than 100 milliseconds then return to it when the rest of the page has arrived.

The product is available either as software that Web site owners deploy with their servers or as a service that processes requests for customers' sites.

Mobile Site Optimizer is available in the fourth quarter of this year and is in beta testing now.

Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.