Compression - anyone using it?

[Arf]

I have a client who thinks that mod_deflate.c is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm wondering if anyone else is using it. cPanel servers do appear to be capable of this but it's not turned on on my servers.

http://www.aptivate.org/webguidelines/Compression.html

Thanks in advance.

[nigel]

I use http://gtmetrix.com/ to test websites and by enabling GD compression and other compression, sites become a lot faster to load. There are lot's of things you can do to help with getting your site to load quicker.

I've got a highly modified Joomla and WHMCS site integrated into one and having problems with scripts being compressed in the wrong order which is breaking the site. Something I have spent a lot of time on.

The reason I do it is because I want my hosting site to appear as quickly as possible. It's not a good indicator of a web host speed judging by their website but some of the punters may notice it especially if one web host takes forever for their site to load.

[jtmneal07]

mod_deflate will lower your bandwidth consumption at the cost of more CPU cycles.

Will it make your website load faster? This is impossible to know.

It will make the size of your website being sent to a browser smaller, so in theory this would increase the speed. But if your CPU is having trouble keeping up with these hits and requests, you'll have a longer wait time waiting for your server's CPU to handle your request.

Generally, I don't use mod_deflate. Our servers don't go over their allotted bandwidth limit, or get anywhere close, so I figure it's better to keep CPU cycles free.

[khimaira2]

Maybe this recently announced vulnerability will help you decide:

http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/ ... uv2lETRSfD

[Arf]

Awesome, thank you.