Fetching Resources using Gzip

This option causes PageSpeed to add Accept-Encoding:gzip to requests for resources.

By default, PageSpeed attempts to fetch resources without specifying anAccept-Encoding header. This means the resources will be sent uncompressed. These requests are often within the LAN, so network bandwidth to transfer the resources may not be a consideration.

If network bandwidth is a consideration, then PageSpeed can be configured to fetch resources using gzip. This will lower the network transfer bandwidth considerably, but may increase the CPU usage depending on server configuration. The primary concern is the time spent by the origin server compressing the resource, rather than the time spent by PageSpeed inflating it.

pagespeed FetchWithGzip on

Another option to minimize network bandwidth is to useLoadFromFile.

These directives can only be applied at the root or server level, and not in location specific configuration.