nampros admin: please consider using mod_gzip

[aww]

I am fortunate enough have broadband, but occasionally if I am at a client site and they only have dialup, if I try to visit NamePros, it's a huge hassle.

While the board looks wonderful and has awesome features, the downside is huge page sizes, rarely under 80k (NOT including images!)

I manage a website with similar size problems and we solved this issue nicely by installing mod_gzip

Here's an example for the page:
http://www.namepros.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=20

native page size: 72430 bytes
download times
28.8 dialup 35.4 seconds <--
56k dialup 17.7 seconds
10k/sec dsl 7.1 seconds
50k/sec dsl 1.4 seconds

mod_gzip level 5 (default setting, barely any extra cpu load)
page size: 9862 bytes !!!! ( 86.4% reduction)
download times:
28.8 dialup 4.8 seconds
56k dialup 2.4 seconds <--- whew, great relief!
10k/sec dsl 1.0 second!
50k/sec dsl 0.2 seconds <---- whoa!

As a huge bonus, this will cut your server bandwidth bill by AT LEAST a third, sometimes as much has half.

 

[Crusader]

they do have it installed I believe but I think it's disabled as it uses up quite a bit of the servers resources.

 

[aww]

The resources/cpu issue is a common myth about mod_gzip.

Huge sites use it, including Google, Slashdot and Sourceforge.

The default setting is level 5, but you can even knock it down to level 1 if there are any concerns and the results are still very benificial for all.

 

[RJ]

Great suggestion. I've enabled mod_gzip, level 5.

 

[aww]

Very nice, helps you, helps me everyone wins.

Already seeing nice realwold results:

original 72413 bytes
Gziped 9924 bytes (as served)

86.3 percent reduction (for url demo listed at top of thread)

ps. now accepting namebuck rewards for bandwidth bill savings

 

[InteractAsia]

:tu:

 

[aww]

By the way, another free addon I have had nice success with on my servers is PHP Accelerator (does PHP code "compiling" / "caching")

http://www.php-accelerator.co.uk/

Virtually hassle free and definitely improves performance.

 

[RJ]

I've read some reports of PHP Accelerator freezing with Cpanel servers, so I went with the alternative. Zend Optimizer has been installed. Hope it helps speed things up a little!

 

[aww]

PHPA is supposedly faster than zend but everything helps.

(My servers are cpanel and never had any trouble.)

Can I ask what level cpu / ram you are running here? I can tell you are on an EV1 backbone so I am assuming its one of their deals

 

[RJ]

Dual Xeon / 1GB RAM

 

[aww]

Nice :o

I have one of their 1.4 p4 deals, went up from a 1ghz duron, massive improvement.