File Compression

[lv393]

Does the eValid browser support compression? The file sizes that evalid logging reports are not smaller when hitting staging, but we have enabled dynamic compression on the web server and see the smaller file sizes in our browser (using http watch). The file sizes are 50% smaller, so it should be a significant performance improvement.

[serverloading]

HTTP/S compression is an HTTP protocol capability.

According to Microsoft documentation the IE browser handles HTTP/S compression modes and has done so from 1997 forward.

eValid is built using the IE DLLs and therefore will handly any HTTP/S activity that IE can handle.

When eValid measures file sizes it measures what has landed in the cache. The size of the file does not change, not even if it is sent from the server to the client browser over a voice grade dialup modem. As a browser. eValid uses the file in its "natural" fully expanded form.

eValid does not measure HTTP traffic at all; it operates at the user level and is isolated from knowing about the details of transmission. The file download time is measured from the time the browser issues the "download URL" request until the time that the "download complete" signals arrives in the browser.

Using HTTP compression trades transmission bandwidth for increased work at the client to expand the compressed files. It is unclear if the increased work of decompression of 50% compressed HTTP passages produces a gain or loss at the client site, that is, in the eValid browser.

What is certain is that the action(s) eValid takes are based on the fully delivered uncompressed HTML text of each page.

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eValid Support Team