Site Hosting Robbers

[AllAffiliatePro]

No it works on all hosts. For example:-
http://www.port80software.com/produc...ck+Compression
Not compressed.
Geraldines site:-
http://www.port80software.com/produc...ck+Compression
Compressed.
Both Linux/Apache

[Mike Hughes]

The thing you have to remember about compression is that, yes it does reduce the bandwidth requirements for html and text content but doesn't do anything about images as they're already compressed.

The other thing is that compression increases the server load (and this also introduces a delay) as the file is compressed when requested.

So if your on a fast server and have a site with large html files then it will make things faster.

If you're on a slow server and your website isn't that large anyway, then the performance can actually be slower.

Mike

[AllAffiliatePro]

Our server is Dual AMD Opteron with 4GB RAM

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Lyle, wasn't having a dig at you. Just making sure that people know that if their web pages load slowly then compression isn't necessarily the solution.

To be honest, I think it's good what you're doing with compression. I have a suspicion most hosts don't use it because they'd rather load up the servers with more websites than improve the performance.

Mike

[NormanRouxel]

Good old dial-up modems also do compression internally (using LZW from the troublesome Unisys if I recall correctly) so those customers will still get some benefits at their end from that. It should be quite efficient with HTML as this is simple text with lots of repeated strings. Images are already compressed so there's no gain there.

I'd guess that the ADSL spec' also does something similar.

Of course neither helps with bandwidth being output by the server, just the amount of data coming down the wire at the customer end.

[AllAffiliatePro]

All of my sites are mostly text with very little in the way of graphics. I remember when we first put HTTP header compression on the server, the effect on our bandwidth was dramatic.
A lot of companis don't use header compression:-
http://www.port80software.com/produc...ck+Compression
(no surprises there) Even though IIS6 has a built in feature they have obviously not enabled it for their own site.
Of course good old google:-
http://www.port80software.com/produc...ck+Compression
have it.

[TraceyHand]

following this thread with interest but, just for the recor,d I have *NO* idea what you lot are on about
Guess that puts me in the "daft" zone