A5 V9 feature peek #50: Gzip compression

Gzip (GNU zip) is a data compression routine similar to the common Zip file format. Most popular Web browsers support gzip compression, because it provides excellent compression, and is unencumbered by patents. And that's why we added gzip support to Alpha Five Platinum.

If the Alpha application server detects a client (Web browser) supports gzip, it will, on the fly, compress data it sends to the browser if the data is not already compressed (e.g., jpeg images).

In the case of a typical HTML, A5W page, or text data, the compression is usually greater than 70 percent. This means 70 percent fewer bits are transmitted over the wire, boosting the application's apparent speed.

For example, Pipeboost provides an online tool that measures the impact of compression on a Web page. We used the tool to test Example 1.23 in Alpha's application server sample pages. It shows a download speed improvement of over 570 percent (you read that right).

Best of all, you as a developer don't have to do anything special to enable gzip's performance boost. It's baked into literally all Web browsers today, as well as Alpha Five Platinum.