We are currently testing server-side compression techniques on our web servers. This compresses your files before sending them to the clients browser. The result is faster downloads and less bandwidth used. However this can have an effect on server performance as compression can use significant processing power.
If successful we will look to roll out the compression to all sites in the future.
March 17th, 2006 at 10:16 am
[…] We are pleased to announce that after some successful Server Side Compression trials at the start of this month HTTP Compression has been deployed across all web servers. HTTP Compression works simply by the web server compressing website content before sending it to the clients browser. The clients browser will then uncompress the content. The result is lower bandwidth usage for your website and possible faster loading time of your website.We currently compress all static and dynamic content on the servers. However there are times when compression might not take place. This is due to the configuration we have in place. If the server detects the client browser does not support compression then compression will not take place. Server side compression can be resource intensive server side depending on what is being compressed. Because of this compression may not be performed if the server resources are above a particular threshold. This is to prevent and server side issues with compression to the detriment of up time and performance. […]
April 4th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Since file compression was introduced, I have received a few complaints from AOL customers that they can not access the site from their browser. Does this mean that AOL does not support file compression? Or do they need to update their browsers?
April 4th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I would always recommend they use the latest browser. I have heard that some AOL users can have problems when Image compression is enabled. Ask them to try turning off image compression in their web settings.
Unfortunately AOL are a world to themselves and hardly follow any kind of web standards so it is very difficult for us to troubleshoot these kinds of problems.
I will investigate to see if there is a way we can disable compression based on the AOL browser.
April 5th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Hopefully this is now resolved after filtering the AOL user-agent via the HTTP compression engine at server level. See http://portal.aguk.net/articles/aol-502-errors/