I noticed that MediaWiki enables PHP's zlib output compression, so that all pages served by MediaWiki are delivered compressed (if the client's browser supports it):
## Compress output if the browser supports it # if( !ini_get( 'zlib.output_compression' ) ) @ob_start( 'ob_gzhandler' );
This has a side effect that in Apache's log, the compression ratio is not shown (at least in Apache 2.2.3 / PHP 5.1.6):
"GET /wiki/index.php/Test2 HTTP/1.1" -/- (-%)
When we disable zlib output compression in MediaWiki, the content is compressed by Apache, and the ratio is shown:
"GET /wiki/index.php/Test2 HTTP/1.1" 2509/8500 (29%)
What are the advantages of using PHP's zlib compression in MediaWiki? I like having the ratio in the logs so I'm keen to disable it - but maybe there's something I'm not aware of?