Steve Smith, host of your TQA Weekly, explains how to speed up the download speed of your web-site using GZip.
Episode #2-30 released on April 22, 2012
Gzip, a term used to explain a type of compression used on the internet, normally in the transmission of data from servers to browsers, and is a popular server enhancement that I, also, believe is of great benefit to those who can deploy it's use.
It is a form of compression that can accelerate the transmission of data from a server to a browser, allowing for an increase of performance, faster downloads of data, and a overall better user experience.
What does this mean for the end user and the content provider? Most users on the internet will simply move to the next web-site when attempting to find content, if the web-site seems to be unresponsive. Because of this, having the fastest loading web-site, is important. I achieve a nearly 400% increase in speed using GZip in my own servers. This allows me to make pages that would normally take a second or two to load, to load in less than half a second, even less. If this isn't enough reason to upgrade your web-sites, then just stop reading or listening to the video.
Now, achieving this, is easy. Provided that your server allows for htaccess files, and has support for Gzip, and most Apache type servers, do, all that is required from you is to create a .htaccess file in any editor, like notepad, and adding the following lines of command.
# compress text, html, javascript, css, xml:
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
# Or, compress certain file types by extension:
<FilesMatch "\.(php|html)$"$gt;
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
</FilesMatch>
You can also pipe in other text based file types in the FilesMatch section to include cgi, perl, rss, etc... If required, of course.
This is ultimately the fastest upgrade your can do, to your own web-site that allows you to speed up the transmission, allowing for a better user experience.
The only negative I found was that inability to use of images, and other already compressed file types. For these, experiment on trying to make the files, as small, as you can.
Next week, and by special request from Giancarlo Capaz, from Longueuil, Quebec, I will be doing a introduction to PHP5, explaining how to set up the programming language for basic tasks such as including files, the date, how to manipulate links for multi-domain web-sites, and more.
Remember to like, share and subscribe to TQA Weekly. For more information like our show notes, how to join our mailing list, get your own TQA Weekly branded gear and apparel, or for our Android Application, please visit tqaweekly.com. Stay safe and online, have a great day!
Host : Steve Smith | Music : Jonny Lee Hart | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Productions