Neil's News

mod_deflete

1 April 2004

The mod_deflate module for Apache compresses HTTP traffic between the server and the browser. By achieving compression ratios of 50%, mod_deflate can significantly save on bandwidth as well as increasing download speeds.

But sometimes 50% compression just isn't good enough. Introducing mod_deflete, a new Apache module which performs "lossy" compression. Harnessing the power of Lzip, mod_deflete makes insignificant edits to web pages so that they compress to amazing ratios. The ratios are configurable in .htaccess directives.

  • 50% -- At this level the compression is loss-less. What is sent is exactly the same as what is received.
  • 70% -- At this level there are miner tweks made to the text in order to fasiletate a higher compresion ratio. These tweks are not liekly to be noticeble in any way.
    LI> 90% - At ths lvl ther ar slietly mor twecs. howevr acordin to usabalety tests, ths changs go wituraly unotised

    A useful technique at the higher ratios is to open and close HTML tags two or three times; one of them should work. Unfortunately there are no known browsers which support lossy HTTP compression.

    "mod_deflete: For when you just don't care."

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