HTTP compression: Difference between revisions

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*[[bzip2]] – compression based on the free bzip2 format, supported by [[lighttpd]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/1/wiki/Docs_ModCompress|title=ModCompress - Lighttpd|publisher=lighty labs|access-date=18 April 2014}}</ref>

*[[lzip]] – compression based on the free lzip format, supported by [[wget]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-wget/2021-09/msg00020.html|title=GNU Wget2 2.0.0 released|access-date=14 May 2025}}</ref> and [[Links_(web_browser)|Links]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://links.twibright.com/download/ChangeLog|title=Links ChangeLog: Support lzip compression|access-date=22 July 2025}}</ref>

*[[Lempel–Ziv–Markov_chain_algorithm|lzma]] – compression based on (raw) LZMA is available in Opera 20, and in elinks via a compile-time option<ref>[http://elinks.or.cz/documentation/html/manual.html-chunked/ch01s07.html#CONFIG-LZMA elinks LZMA decompression]</ref>

*peerdist<ref>{{cite web|url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd304322%28v=PROT.10%29.aspx|title=[MS-PCCRTP]: Peer Content Caching and Retrieval: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Extensions|publisher=Microsoft|access-date=19 April 2014}}</ref> – Microsoft Peer Content Caching and Retrieval

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*[[HAProxy]]

*[[Varnish (software)|Varnish]] – built-in. Works also with [[Edge Side Includes|ESI]]

*[https://line.github.io/armeria/ Armeria] – Serving pre-compressed files<ref>{{cite web|url=https://line.github.io/armeria/server-http-file.html#serving-pre-compressed-files|title=Serving static files part of Armeria's documentation|access-date=2020-01-16|archive-date=2020-04-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200402003001/https://line.github.io/armeria/server-http-file.html#serving-pre-compressed-files|url-status=dead}}</ref>

*[[NaviServer]] – built-in, dynamic and static compression

*[[Caddy (web server)|Caddy]] – built-in via [https://caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfile/directives/encode encode]

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A 2009 article by Google engineers Arvind Jain and Jason Glasgow states that more than 99 person-years are wasted<ref name="google-use-compression">{{cite web|url=https://developers.google.com/speed/articles/use-compression|title=Use compression to make the web faster|access-date=22 May 2013|publisher=Google Inc.}}</ref> daily due to increase in page load time when users do not receive compressed content. This occurs when anti-virus software interferes with connections to force them to be uncompressed, where proxies are used (with overcautious web browsers), where servers are misconfigured, and where browser bugs stop compression being used. Internet Explorer 6, which drops to HTTP 1.0 (without features like compression or pipelining) when behind a proxy&nbsp;– a common configuration in corporate environments&nbsp;– was the mainstream browser most prone to failing back to uncompressed HTTP.<ref name="google-use-compression" />

Another problem found while deploying HTTP compression on large scale is due to the '''deflate''' encoding definition: while HTTP 1.1 defines the '''deflate''' encoding as data compressed with deflate (RFC 1951) inside a [[zlib]] formatted stream (RFC 1950), Microsoft server and client products historically implemented it as a "raw" deflated stream,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9170338/why-are-major-web-sites-using-gzip/9186091#9186091|title=deflate - Why are major web sites using gzip?|publisher=Stack Overflow|access-date=18 April 2014}}</ref> making its deployment unreliable.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vervestudios.co/projects/compression-tests/|title=Compression Tests: About|publisher=Verve Studios|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150102111552/http://www.vervestudios.co/projects/compression-tests/|archive-date=2 January 2015|access-date=18 April 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://zoompf.com/blog/2012/02/lose-the-wait-http-compression|title=Lose the wait: HTTP Compression|publisher=Zoompf Web Performance|access-date=18 April 2014}}</ref> For this reason, some software, including the Apache HTTP Server, only implementimplements '''gzip''' encoding.

==Security implications==