title: Bandwith Speed Boost Tips for PHP5 Servers: Output and Zlib Compression
body: <p>I have some detailed, specialist questions about the nature of the settings that go in htaccess when setting up <strong>PHP bandwith savings</strong> and the <strong>effective speed gain experienced</strong>:</p>
  
  <p>Allow me to thank you in advance for your answer and clarifications on this matter as I dont understand the <em>encyclopedic style long-page apache manuals</em> </p>
  
  <p>Example below is what is actually running on my Apache 2.0 and PHP 5.2.3  </p>
  
  <pre><code># preserve bandwidth for PHP enabled servers
  &lt;ifmodule mod_php4.c&gt;
      php_value zlib.output_compression 16386
  &lt;/ifmodule&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Q1:</strong> Does <code>ifmodule mod_php4.c</code> suggest that its for PHP 4 and not PHP5?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Q2:</strong> Would it be faster for the server engine to have this in <code>php.ini</code>, instead of htaccess?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Q3:</strong> The compression is default set to <code>16386</code>. What happens if we lower it to, say, <code>4K</code> </p>
  
  <p><strong>Q4:</strong> What would happen if we set it higher, e.g. <code>128K</code> ?</p>