Enable Brotli for Apache on Google Cloud Compute Engine website

JimmyTheCuck

10/6/23, 1:06 AM

I installed and enabled the Brotli module just fine through SSH. Then, I added this to my port 80 VirtualHost config:

<IfModule mod_brotli.c>
    SetOutputFilter BROTLI_COMPRESS
    SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-brotli
    AddOutputFilterByType BROTLI_COMPRESS text/html text/plain text/xml text/css text/javascript application/javascript
</IfModule>

After restarting Apache, everything is still served via gzip and not Brotli. Specifically, I see content-encoding: gzip for each text-based file, not content-encoding: br as expected.

Edit: my headers include accept-encoding: gzip, deflate, br so that can't be the problem.

Every tutorial that I've researched has very simple instructions yet gzip insists on being the preferred compression method no matter what I try. Going over the VirtualHost config files, I can't see anything about gzip or compression in them at all so it's odd that adding the above to those config files has no impact at all.

0 + 3

gzip

apache-2.4

google-compute-engine

google-cloud-platform

apache2

John Hanley

10/6/23, 2:25 AM

1) What is the result from this test: `curl -I -H 'Accept-Encoding: br' URL`? If you see `Content-Encoding: br` then Brotli compression is working. 2) If not, you have a configuration problem. 3) Your request specifies three compression methods. The server has picked one. 4) Try moving `br` to the front of your `accept-encoding` header. 5) Try adding the qualifier `Accept-Encoding: gzip;q=0.5, br;q=1.0` to the request to specify compression preference. Update your question with more details from my comments.

JimmyTheCuck

10/6/23, 2:42 AM

@John I can test the curl command tomorrow. For now, 3/4/5 - it is `accept-encoding: gzip, deflate, br` because that's what's default in Chrome. Does that mean Chrome prefers gzip over Brotli? ie: if a site can serve both, does Chrome decide to request gzip?

John Hanley

10/6/23, 3:12 AM

Yes, the `accept-encoding` header specifies client preference left to right unless a qualifier is added. That means if both the server and client support `gzip` and `gzip` is first, `gzip` will be selected usually. There are other headers that can affect that decision.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Enable Brotli for Apache on Google Cloud Compute Engine website

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