Using GZIP For Basic Html Page

[murmy]

Ive been told that I can reduce loading times on my (mostly html) web page by using GZIP compression on my apache server.

Can anyone advise what modification needs to be made to the .htaccess file and is that all that needs to be done?

Also, are there any significant downsides to the use of GZIP for a mostly html, mostly plain text website? Any other feedback on the use of GZIP to speed up loading times would be greatly appreciated.

[coopster]

Your browser will let the server know if it can handle compressed responses and the server will accommodate, if configured to do so.

Have a look at mod_deflate [httpd.apache.org] if you are running Apache 2.x.

[swa66]

There are two obvious reasons to be cautious about compressing your web pages

- performance: while the clients each only will have one page to decompress at a time, your server will have to compress *all* of them at the same time.

- support: some really old browsers might have trouble with compression, but I think they aren't an issue in real life anymore (anybody still seeing real Netscape 4 browsers ?)