HTTP 1.1 Data Compression!

Today, I got a suggestion about improving the performance of a website, which was really slow to access via the web. The suggestion goes like this

1) Open Internet Explorer

2) Go to Tools -> Internet Options and click on Advanced

3) Check HTTP 1.1

4) Click on Apply and then OK.

The performance should improve now. I was wondering after reading this. Even if the performance improves after doing as per the instructions given above, how does it improve?

So, I wanted to ask google to help me in solving this question. And it did help. First step was to identify the key differences between HTTP 1.0 and HTTP 1.1. This link addressed the comparison in a neat way.

As we all know, the best way to conserve bandwidth is through compression. Be it taking your data in a floppy disk or transmitting it across a LAN, compression saves a lot of time and bandwidth. Whilst most of the images & videos (JPG, MPEG) are compressed, the actual text data is not compressed. Now, if the web server sends the data out in the compressed format and the browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox etc) is able to decompress it, then we save a large amount of bandwidth and increase the performance in the process. HTML is ASCII text and can be compressed to get a compression ratio of atleast 90%.

And there are two types of compression to achieve this

Content - Encoding : Pre-Compress the files before even being sent.

Transfer-Encoding : Compress and send the requested data on the fly. (during transmission)

Irrespective of the type of encoding, the goal is the same; "Compress the data before sending". Most modern browsers support gzip form of compression. Here is a nice link that explains how HTTP compression will speed up the web.

Webmasters, if you are complained about slower performance of your website, check this out and enable immediately.

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