Rule 4: Gzip Components(Chapter 4 of High performance Web Sites)
Rule 4, examined in this chapter, reduces response times by reducing the size of the
HTTP response.If an HTTP request results in a smaller response, the transfer time
decreases because fewer packets must travel from the server to the client.This effect
is even greater for slower bandwidth speeds.This chapter shows how to use gzip
encoding to compress HTTP responses, and thus reduce network response times.
This is the easiest technique for reducing page weight and it also has the biggest
impact.There are other ways you can reduce the HTML document’s page weight
(strip comments and shorten URLs, for example), but they are typically less effective
and require more work.
The same file compression that has been used for decades to reduce file sizes in email
messages and on FTP sites is also used to deliver compressed web pages to browsers.
Starting with HTTP/1.1, web clients indicate support for compression with the
Accept-Encoding header in the HTTP request.
HTTP response.If an HTTP request results in a smaller response, the transfer time
decreases because fewer packets must travel from the server to the client.This effect
is even greater for slower bandwidth speeds.This chapter shows how to use gzip
encoding to compress HTTP responses, and thus reduce network response times.
This is the easiest technique for reducing page weight and it also has the biggest
impact.There are other ways you can reduce the HTML document’s page weight
(strip comments and shorten URLs, for example), but they are typically less effective
and require more work.
The same file compression that has been used for decades to reduce file sizes in email
messages and on FTP sites is also used to deliver compressed web pages to browsers.
Starting with HTTP/1.1, web clients indicate support for compression with the
Accept-Encoding header in the HTTP request.
