A widely used compression program that compresses files to save storage space and speed up data transfers. The program uses the Deflate algorithm to compress and decompress a single file using the gzip file format. It was released in 1992 as a free software replacement for the compress program because its compression algorithm, LZW, was covered by patents from Unisys and IBM, which did not expire until 2003 and 2004. Jean-Loup Gailly designed the gzip file format, which was later specified by RFC 1952, and originally wrote the gzip program. Mark Adler wrote the decompression part. Gzip is now developed by the GNU project.
Usage in Web Servers
Gzip is commonly used in web servers, like Apache and Nginx, to compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other web content before it's sent to browsers.
Purpose: Reducing File Size
Gzip reduces the size of files, making it faster to transfer them over the internet. It’s especially popular for compressing website content, as it reduces page load times and improves user experience.
Functionality: DEFLATE Algorithm
Gzip compresses data using the DEFLATE algorithm, which is a combination of LZ77 and Huffman coding. This algorithm is efficient for both compression and decompression.
File Extensions
Files compressed by Gzip have the .gz extension.
