How reliable is HTTP compression using gzip?
- by Liam
YSlow has suggested that I use HTTP compression to improve the performance of my site. However, as noted by Yahoo that are some problems.
There are known issues with browsers
and proxies that may cause a mismatch
in what the browser expects and what
it receives with regard to compressed
content. Fortunately, these edge cases
are dwindling as the use of older
browsers drops off. The Apache modules
help out by adding appropriate Vary
response headers automatically.
I understand that the most common problem occurs with IE6 behind a proxy. But how common are these problems today? To quantify it, roughly what percentage of web users experience bugs with HTTP compression?