Skip to main content

Google Chrome now tells you if a website is inaccessible

When a website does not open, web browsers throw a general “website not found” or “server not responding” message. Such messages are vague and does not tell you whether the web server is actually down or if the problem is elsewhere. Your ISP could be facing technical problems, or deliberately blocking the page, there might be a temporary traffic congestion or something wrong in your home connection.

A web service that has been offering immense help in troubleshooting such problems, and which is popular among the tech folks is Down For Everyone Or Just Me. You go there, enter the URL of the page that doesn’t open and see if others people around the world are having trouble accessing the site as well. But the latest version of Chrome appears to provide the same information, as discovered by blog Rudefox. 

While trying to access a website, the blogger got the typical Chrome message “Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to site.com” and additionally it also mentioned that “Other users are also experiencing difficulties connecting to this site, so you may have to wait a few minutes.”.

google-chrome-error

It’s a known fact that Google collects anonymous surfing data from users of Chrome. With this latest Chrome feature, Google accidentally opened up a small crack in their data vault allowing us a quick view of the kind of data Google may be collecting from users, even though Matt Cutts denies Google snooping in on users.

If you’re just surfing around the web and clicking on links, that information does not go to google.com.

It’s a great thing to make the user aware that its not his connection that is the source of the problem but the web server, but it comes at a price.

[via TechCrunch]

Labels:

Comments

  1. Hannah HurstSeptember 6, 2010 at 3:08 PM

    The regular message of “website not found” is very irritating to the user. Mostly because of how vague and unhelpful this is by not informing you of whether the web server is actually down or if the problem is elsewhere.

    To have the option of a more informative site which can assist you on actually finding the fault is great. The simplicity of just having to type in your problem URL just adds to its favour. Next time I get the dreaded message I will definitely be checking out this site to see what everyone else around the world has to say.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Record CPU and Memory Usage Over Time in Windows?

Whenever the computer is lagging or some application is taking too long to respond, we usually fire up task manager and look under the Performance tab or under Processes to check on processor utilization or the amount of free memory available. The task manager is ideal for real-time analysis of CPU and memory utilization. It even displays a short history of CPU utilization in the form of a graph. You get a small time-window, about 30 seconds or so, depending on how large the viewing area is.
17 comments
Read more

Diagram 101: Different Types of Diagrams and When To Use Them

Diagrams are a great way to visualize information and convey meaning. The problem is that there’s too many different types of diagrams, so it can be hard to know which ones you should use in any given situation. To help you out, we’ve created this diagram that lays out the 7 most common types of diagrams and when they’re best used:
Post a Comment
Read more

How to Schedule Changes to Your Facebook Page Cover Photo

Facebook’s current layout, the so called Timeline, features a prominent, large cover photo that some people are using in a lot of different creative ways. Timeline is also available for Facebook Pages that people can use to promote their website or business or event. Although you can change the cover photo as often as you like, it’s meant to be static – something which you design and leave it for at least a few weeks or months like a redesigned website. However, there are times when you may want to change the cover photo frequently and periodically to match event dates or some special promotion that you are running or plan to run. So, here is how you can do that.
1 comment
Read more