SPDY: Shorten your page load time like no other

SPDY (say 'speedy') is a mature protocol from Google which supersets HTTP 1.1. It is available on NGINX, Apache2, NodeJS and more.

For browsers capable of talking SPDY (Chrome, Opera, Firefox), this protocol provides:

1. Prevention of the browsers to resend information like user-agent, browser properties. In a way, it creates a session state on a normally stateless protocol.
2. Avoidance of the HTTP pipelining mechanisms and an ability to prioritize the sent assets to its clients.
3. A push mechanism that can pre-fill the browsers cache just like it was doing some page prefetching. If you prefer to lower the outgoing bandwidth of your servers, there are server hints that informs the browsers of the prefetching they could if they wish it.

With a default Gzip extension in case your clients does not support this protocol, coupled with PageSpeed (see : PageSpeed: Turbo ON for your sites), SPDY will transform your users experience.

Guy Podjamy, CTO of Akamai, presents a nice introductory video on SPDY. A must watch.