Bandwidth and Forums

[Iain]

Gzip means that the server generates the page, compresses it and then sends it to the browser with a meta tag to tell the browser it's compressed, the browser then uncompresses it and displays it. Result, less bandwidth used but both the server and browser need more CPU time. Also, not all browsers support gzip but the main ones do. You might want to check if your host allows it as well

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

Well I think GZIP is worth a go, what sort of change in bandwidth could I expect?

No attachments but basically the viewtopic.php file is 45kb and as I type has been hit 14390 times. That equates to almost 650mb by itself - most of the problem is that its approximately 30% of the bandwidth on that one page.

[DaBeeeenster]

Gzip will be pretty good on things like forum pages as HTML and text compress very well; I'd say you can expect a >50% reduction in bandwidth from this page...