Question

Can anyone who is using GZip for HTML, JS, PHP and CSS explain how to implement this on a server?

What I want to know is:

1. What do I have to write in .htaccess?
2. What and from which source do I have to download?
3. Most important: does it make a difference and does it pay off?

Answer 1

You need mod_deflate or mod_gzip to be enabled on your httpd.conf. After that, you should put the following lines into your configuration or .htaccess file.

Apache 1.3.x:

mod_gzip_on Yes  

mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript$  
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/json$  
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*$  

mod_gzip_item_include file \.html$  
mod_gzip_item_include file \.php$  
mod_gzip_item_include file \.js$  
mod_gzip_item_include file \.css$  
mod_gzip_item_include file \.txt$  
mod_gzip_item_include file \.xml$  
mod_gzip_item_include file \.json$  

Header append Vary Accept-Encoding

Apache 2.0

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/css text/plain text/xml application/x-javascript application/json   
Header append Vary Accept-Encoding