HTTP compression is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve the performance of a web site. A browser indicates that it supports compression with the Accept-Encoding request header and the server
indicates the compression type in the Content-Encoding response header.
This screenshot from the Stream tab of HttpWatch shows these headers and the compressed content being returned [...]
Google has launched a new site that promotes the use of techniques to make web pages load faster. The site shares some of the tools and ideas that are used within Google to optimize its own web sites.
The article on caching uses HttpWatch to show the difference in performance when the Expires header has been correctly set:
Steve Souders, the web performance evangelist at Google, taught a course last year at Stanford’s Computer Science Department based on his highly regarded ‘High Performance Web Sites’ book. The course materials including slides, notes and labs are available from Steve’s web site.
A video has also been released of the first lecture of the course :
In the first few minutes, Steve uses [...]