mod_gzip functionality

[weekender]

in my understanding, mod_gzip works like this;

1. browser requests file from webserver

2. mod_gzip gzips the file on the server and transfers the gzipped file to the browser

3. the browser unzips the file and displays it
   [/list=1]

   thus saving bandwidth and reducing load speeds.

   my host claims to have mod_gzip active. When i contested this, i got the following response detailing how to use mod_gzip;

   If you gzip the file and then upload it as whatever.ext.gz the server will decompress the file and serve it as standard html

   This would not save bandwidth or download times, only the amount of space used on the host.

   Have they got the function of mod_gzip wrong, are they using it in another mode, or is my understanding of why to use it completely wrong?

   cheers, adam

[elementaluk]

mod_gzip is an Internet Content Acceleration module for the popular Apache Web Server. It compresses the contents delivered to the client. There is no need to install any additional software on the client!

taken from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mod-gzip/

I would say your host is a lying b*stard but we could both be wrong.

edit: there is also this: http://www.sitepoint.com/article/web-output-mod_gzip-apache

[weekender]

so it looks like they're using the first method used in the sitepoint article, where you provide gz copies of all your files and then they are offered automatically without using mod_gzip.

i've pointed this out to them, hope they get back to me

[elementaluk]

ok i'm one of those people that can't see sh*t but I want it so I asked my host to install this and one of my pages that was over 70 KB is now 6 KB! ... everyone needs this!

[goldbug]

Don't forget to stick with lowercase-only markup:

http://websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/lowercase/

[Weedpacket]

Originally posted by elementaluk
ok i'm one of those people that can't see sh*t but I want it so I asked my host to install this and one of my pages that was over 70 KB is now 6 KB! ... everyone needs this!

Yup, even plain English text compresses to 30-40% of its original size; (consistently-formatted, as goldbug alludes) HTML can easily be 90% smaller once gzipped.

I had one project which had the option of generating text-format reports (each on the order of 1-2M😎; I was kibitzing with the site's sysadmin that mod_gzip would be a Good Thing and he agreed. He installed it, and next day customers began calling up just to say that they were suddenly getting much faster results. Those 1-2MB reports were being compressed to 50-100kB and that's all they were having to download.