Antwort: [Mod_gzip] Re: Antwort: mod_gzip v. mod_deflate

[mod_gzip@lists.over.net]

Hi Ian,

> for the configuration settings, I would suggest you use:
> AddoutputfilterbyType text/html  DEFLATE
> as compressing css & js files breaks certain browsers (I believe)

Netscape 4 is the "bad guy":
     http://www.schroepl.net/projekte/mod_gzip/browser.htm#Netscape4

But as Netscape 4 has other problems as well (cannot even print com-
pressed HTML pages!) your main choice would be to
- ignore the problems of this broken browser from 1996 or
- exclude it from compression (mod_gzip_item_exclude reqheader) or
- include CSS & JavaScript with server side technology (SSI etc.) or
- request CSS with a CSS2 syntax (@import) not supported by Netscape 4.

The last alternative is reasonable anyway, as Netscape 4 doesn't
officially support CSS at all (it supports JSSS which lost the race
for becoming the standard against CSS, so Netscape 4 included a quick
and very dirty CSS implementation in the JavaScript engine - this is
why Netscape 4 disables CSS when you turn off JavaScript ...) so that
you need Netscape4-customized CSS anyway if you want to explicitly
support this browser.


Regards, Michael