What is IETF Content-Encoding (or HTTP Compression)?
In a nutshell… it is simply a publicly defined way to compress HTTP content being transferred from Web servers down to browsers using nothing more than public domain compression algorithms that are freely available. “Content-Encoding” and “Transfer-Encoding” are both clearly defined in the public IETF Internet RFCs that govern the development and improvement of the HTTP protocol which is the ‘language’ of the World Wide Web. “Content-Encoding” applies to methods of encoding and/or compression that have been applied to documents before they are requested. This is also known as “pre-compressing pages.” The concept never really caught on because of the complex file maintenance burden it represents and there are few Internet sites that use pre-compressed pages of any description. “Transfer-Encoding” applies to methods of encoding and/or compression used during the actual transmission of the data itself. In modern practice, however, the two are now one and the same. Since most HTTP conten
