Re: [tlug] Acid drop on mobile?

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2008-02-14 16:20 -0800 (Thu), Dave M G wrote:

> I'm considering using this PHP script called "Acid drop", which basically 
> gzips a web page before sending it to the browser, in order to cut down on 
> packet requests.

Note that you don't necessarially need PHP for this; it's available from
some web servers, such as lighttpd, as a module. E.g.:

    http://trac.lighttpd.net/trac/wiki/Docs%3AModCompress

Lighttpd will also cache the compressed pages to avoid re-compressing
them every time, if you like. However, it does have the potential flaw
that it doesn't compress dynamic content. (But you probably want to do
that on the application servers, anyway, so that if you separate them
the load is distributed across them rather than the web server fronting
them).

> What I'm curious to know is if this is a strategy that will work for mobile 
> phones. Do modern mobile phones handle compression?

I guess you'll need to test that out and log your results on the
keitai-dev.net wiki. :-)

Note, though, that potentially this may not save you anything on the
packet charges, if the gateway does the decompression and they charge
for the post-gateway size.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974   
Mobile sites and software consulting: http://www.starling-software.com