HTTP compression speeds up file delivery across the
Internet, keeps your users happy with faster page
loads, and reduces bandwidth costs. Compression was
non-existent on IIS 4 and broken on IIS 5, but Windows
Server 2003 with Internet Information Services (IIS)
6.0 now offers great out-of-the-box compression
embedded into the core Web server code itself.

While Port80 Software's httpZip is the best ISAPI
compression solution for Windows web servers, we highly
recommend that you use the internal compression engine
in IIS 6.0 on Windows Server 2003 -- it's lightning
fast, incurs minimal resource penalties, and you
already bought it when you bought the OS.

There are a few major drawbacks to IIS 6.0 built-in
compression: natively, IIS 6.0 offers no browser
compatibility checking and limited configuration
options. Compression can only be safely deployed with
browser checking, as you may wind up sending compressed
content to a browser that cannot decompress it! IIS 6.0
also does not provide a graphical interface to most
controls (necessities like site level compression,
compression schemes, and all advanced settings are only
accessible via a labor-intensive programmatic
interface). Beyond these limitations, there are a few
specific cases where you should explore an ISAPI
solution on IIS 6.0 over native compression.

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