[e2e] Compression of web pages

[David G. Andersen]

On Tue, Aug 27, 2002 at 12:50:13PM -0400, Woojune Kim mooed:
> Thanks for the note. 
> 
> But, correct me if I'm wrong, this is more of a passive indication saying I can receive gziped files. What I was wondering if there was a way for the user to indicate proactively, "Please compress these HTML files when you send them to me." 
> 
> The original question was triggered by how we can allow wireless internet users to get compressed web pages. It seems only by having the web proxy modify the http data can we get what I was thinking about.

   I fail to see the significant difference.  If, and only if, the
webserver can compress the pages, then it will if you send
accept-encoding gzip.  So, with a gzip-happy webserver, 
"accept" means "please."  If the server doesn't support it, no
amount of demand or wishful thinking will ever force it to
compress pages...

   If you want more than that, you need a transcoding proxy.
c.f. transend/tacc (inktomi) and many others.  To get you 
started, see:

"Reducing WWW Latency and Bandwidth Requirements by Real-Time Distillation"
Armando Fox and Eric Brewer

http://www5conf.inria.fr/fich_html/papers/P48/Overview.html

  -Dave

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