[thelist] serving gzip - pros and cons?

[Lachlan Cannon]

Bob Easton wrote:
> What are the pros and cons of serving web content compressed via gzip? Some
> servers have methods for doing this easily, and it appears that modern
> browsers can readily receive and decode gzip streams.  With a compression
> ratio of up to 10:1, it looks like a good way to reduce bandwidth.
>
> Pros? Cons?

Pros: You save a fuckload of bandwidth. Pages will load faster for
visitors, since the bottleneck is nearly always in the connection
(especiall for 56k and less).

Cons: Taxes the server a little, so if you have a packed machine you
might not be able to do it (but you shouldn't be pakcing a machine to
the brim anyway). I'm not sure whether there is a free gzip solution for
non apache servers.

I really wish more people would implement gzip compression... I could do
a *lot* more on the net without going over my bandwidth limit (107mb per
month).
--
Lach
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