Is compression the magic bullet?

With server-based compression dramatically reducing the size of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, is there any room for further reduction in file sizes? Yes, there is.

Introducing AJAX-style asynchronous form submission and AJAX-style grids and other user interface elements will still make a big difference, even with compression enabled. And if you can do so without too much effort, it is worthwhile to reduce ViewState. On the other hand, removing repetitive content such as white space will make less sense, because compression algorithms are very good at compressing such content. Reducing ViewState is described in Chapter 9, Reducing Time to Last Byte, optimizing forms in Chapter 11,

Also, even with compression enabled for dynamic files in your server and most browsers supporting compression, your server will still be sending uncompressed content to some of your visitors:

• Some anti-virus packages and web proxies strip off or mangle the Accept-Encoding request...