Broadband compression - Images vs data (does it exist)

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roddyp

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Hi,

A bit of a newbie question.

If i were to upload or download a 10 gig text file vs a 10 gig image file via ADSL would there be a speed difference.

It seemed like a simple question to me at first as my assumption is no. But when upload/downloading files, are there compression algorithms at work? If there were it would obviously make a difference between the two.

I've goggled, but i cant seem to find anything solid about it.

Thanks

Roddy
 
10 stays 10, you assumed correctly when thinking the answer is no.
 
no,there should not,but it all depends on what site u upload it to / download from (as some sites can only allow that much bandwidth to a user) eg. a p2p file share site,may only give u 1mbps bandwidth,even tho u got a 10mbps internet

and upload is alot slower than your download

but when u download a text file or image or anything from lets say the same site,there should not be a difference in speed
 
Last edited:
Depends.

Say you see a 10GB text file from some website and they have compression enabled, the size would be radically less when downloaded.
A similar system could be employed for uploads, but would have to be performed by the client(aka you) before the upload initiates.

Generally, no middleman will compress/decompress output. Security systems and proxies may, but it's usually transparently and does not affect the size of the data on either ends.
 
roddyp said:
Hi,

A bit of a newbie question.

If i were to upload or download a 10 gig text file vs a 10 gig image file via ADSL would there be a speed difference.

It seemed like a simple question to me at first as my assumption is no. But when upload/downloading files, are there compression algorithms at work? If there were it would obviously make a difference between the two.

I've goggled, but i cant seem to find anything solid about it.

Thanks

Roddy
Click to expand...

Gzip compression would likely improve the speed of this download significantly since text is highly compressible compared to a format like jpg that is already fairly compressed (if the server and client supports Gzip)

http://superuser.com/questions/139253/what-is-the-maximum-compression-ratio-of-gzip
https://developers.google.com/speed/articles/gzip
 
Doubtful - it'll be the same in 99% of the cases I'd think.

Upload isn't shaped and SA ADSL isn't compressed.

imranpanji said:
It is a function of the web server and your client (browser).

More complete description of compression types and servers supporting compression can be found here : http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_compression
Click to expand...
I might be wrong about this - but isn't that generally only for download not up?
 
Unless you have a proxy in the middle that specialises in compression and therefore compresses it on the fly it will be exactly the same.

Also I've never heard of a proxy server that could survive compressing a 10GB file. 10MB or maybe a 100MB yes, anything larger it will either skip, block or ignore.
 
HavocXphere said:
Doubtful - it'll be the same in 99% of the cases I'd think.

Upload isn't shaped and SA ADSL isn't compressed.


I might be wrong about this - but isn't that generally only for download not up?
Click to expand...

The compression and decompression occurs on the client and the server. Dropbox and the like are quite smart people and am sure their webapp has some fancy JavaScript that can handle some compression in the client browser
 
HTTP uploads aren't compressed at all, unless TLS (HTTPS) compression is enabled, which is typically not the case due to security reasons.

You can perhaps get a website that has a Flash upload utility that supports compression, which may be able to upload text files faster due to possible compression.

If you use an application like DC++ to upload files, then it would be able to achieve faster speeds due to compression.
 
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