Archive for the ‘Websites’ Category
Force GZIP compression on your HostMonster-hosted website
As you may already know, I am a speed and performance junkie. When it comes to website management, nothing makes me feel better than a website that loads fast! If this can be done with dynamic content then it is something to admire.
One feature that I have implemented on the HostMonster-hosted website that I manage is GZIP compression. For a detailed description on GZIP you can read this very interesting article on BetterExplained.com. In short, however, what GZIPing does is that it compresses downloaded files which essentially saves a bit on server bandwidth and slightly speeds up client-side viewing. Although you can use some PHP to call for compression on the fly for specific files it is much easier to simply activate compression from the web server. Here, I will show you how you can activate it for a website hosted with HostMonster. This should also work if you are on another shared hosting provider that runs under Linux and Apache. You need access to your php.ini file and .htaccess file.
