Google today took the wraps off its new experimental protocol called QUIC (Quick UDP Internet Connections) and added it to Chrome Canary, the latest version of its browser. QUIC includes a variety of new features, but the main point is that it runs a stream multiplexing protocol over a new flavor of Transport Layer Security (TLS) on top of UDP instead of TCP.
Here are the highlights Google wants to emphasize right now:
- High security similar to TLS.
- Fast (often 0-RTT) connectivity similar to TLS Snapstart combined with TCP Fast Open.
- Packet pacing to reduce packet loss.
- Packet error correction to reduce retransmission latency.
- UDP transport to avoid TCP head-of-line blocking.
- A connection identifier to reduce reconnections for mobile clients.
- A pluggable congestion control mechanism.
QUIC was actually first spotted by Google evangelist François Beaufort back in February. At the time, however, it was only available in Chromium, the open source Web browser project that shares much of the same code as Google Chrome.
Google meanwhile describes Canary as “the most bleeding-edge official version of Chrome and somewhat of a mix between Chrome dev and the Chromium snapshot builds.” If QUIC has made it into Canary, it’s very likely it will one day make it into Chrome’s dev channel, the beta channel, and then eventually the stable channel.
More to follow.
