brotli

Chromium Internals: PAK Files

Web browsers are made up of much more than the native code (mostly compiled C++) that makes up their .exe and .dll files. A significant portion of the browser’s functionality (and bulk) is what we’d call “resources”, which include things like: Images (at two resolutions, regular and “high-DPI”) Localized UI Strings HTML, JavaScript, and CSSContinue reading “Chromium Internals: PAK Files”

FiddlerCore and Brotli compression

Recently, a developer asked me how to enable Brotli content-compression support in FiddlerCore applications, so that APIs like oSession.GetResponseBodyAsString() work properly when the entity body has been compressed using brotli. Right now, support requires two steps: Put brotli.exe (installed by Fiddler or off Github) into a Tools subfolder of the folder containing your application’s executable. Ensure that theContinue reading “FiddlerCore and Brotli compression”

2016 Brotli Update

Windows 10 Build 14986 adds support for Brotli compression to the Edge browser (but, somewhat surprisingly, not IE11). So at the end of 2016, we now have support for this improved compression algorithm in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, and the long tail of browsers based on Chromium. Of modern browsers, only Apple isContinue reading “2016 Brotli Update”

Automatically Evaluating Compressibility

Fiddler’s Transformer tab has long been a simple way to examine the use of HTTP compression of web assets, especially as new compression engines (like Zopfli) and compression formats (like Brotli) arose. However, the one-Session-at-a-time design of the Transformer tab means it is cumbersome to use to evaluate the compressibility of an entire page orContinue reading “Automatically Evaluating Compressibility”

Getting Started with Profile Guided Optimization

For the convenience of the Windows developer community, I periodically compile the Zopfli and Brotli compressors from source, building for Win32 and code-signing the binaries (Interested? Get Zopfli.exe and Brotli.exe). After announcing the latest build on Twitter, I got an interesting question in reply: While I try to use the latest compiler (VS2015 U1), I’veContinue reading “Getting Started with Profile Guided Optimization”

What’s New in Fiddler 4.6.0.7

TLDR? – Get the newest Fiddler here. We’re performing a staged rollout of this build; it won’t be on autoupdate until next week. Under the Hood As mentioned in our notes about the Fiddler 4.6 release, we’ve started taking a very close look at Fiddler’s performance. Fiddler’s use of the CPU, system memory, and theContinue reading “What’s New in Fiddler 4.6.0.7”

Fiddler and Brotli

Regular readers of my blog know how excited I am about Google’s new open compression engine, Brotli. Support is in Firefox 44 Nightly already and is expected for other browsers. Because Brotli is used inside the WOFF2 font format, many clients already have the compression code and just need to expose it in a newContinue reading “Fiddler and Brotli”

2022 Update: Brotli is requested by 94% of browsers, offers great performance, and works amazingly well on Web Assembly code. If you’re still using GZIP today, you should update! Regular readers of my blog know how much I love Zopfli, Google’s compression engine that often shrinks output by 5% or better when compared to theContinue reading “Brotli”