Below are compression and expiration settings for Apache that I’ve found optimal for StepMania.  You can paste them into your .htaccess file.

  • Don’t mess with PHP’s ob_gzhandler.  The settings below enable compression at the Apache module level, are the cleanest way to handle compression of non-PHP types, and are better performing to boot.
  • If your PHP application has a option for compression (it’ll be using ob_gzhander), turn that off in favor of these settings.
  • Web-Sniffer is useful for testing whether your compression and cache-control settings are taking effect. It’s also useful for troubleshooting HTTP error responses that Firefox and Chrome hide with pretty error pages.
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-php
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-fastphp
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-eruby
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On

ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType audio/x-wav "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType audio/mpeg "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType video/mpeg "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType video/mp4 "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType video/quicktime "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType video/x-ms-wmv "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"

ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 hour"
ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 hour"
</IfModule>