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Making flowplayer.swf files play in IE where gzip is enabled

Posted at Aug 20, 2010 5:11:11 AM by Bill Teubner | Share

In an effort to make some websites and applications load faster, some developers may have implemented gzip compression to enable to page to load significantly faster. Be it because of the amount of data that the page displays; i.e. images, text and so on. Although it may be in good practice to enable gzip compression on your website, some may have faced the dilema of their swf videos having trouble playing; especially in the dreaded IE browser.

If you have come across it and decided, "Well maybe I will just remove gzip and save the headache", then go ahead and enable it once again! There IS a fix!

But first lets see what gzip is exactly. The current definition is as follows: GZip is a compression method often used in web applications and software such as phpBB to improve speed. Most modern browsers support this on-the-fly algorithm. Gzip is also used to compress an archive of files. Higher compression levels, however, will increase server load.

If you have all our swf files in one folder, then go ahead and create an .htaccess file inside that folder with the following:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule . - [E=no-gzip:1]

This previous code will only disable gzip for the swf file type. So that there is no compression or cache of the file types. You can also use it on a per folder basis. Of course the .htaccess is only applicable if you are hosted on an apache based server.
With apache just add a .htaccess file with the above commands in it to the folder you're storing your flowplayer.swf files in that way gzipping will only be disabled for that folder.

If you would like more information about this there's tons of additional information on the subject via google: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&&sa=X&ei=QnAWTJH0OISdlgfxr-GFDA&ved=0CBEQBSgA&q=htaccess+disable+gzip+swf&spell=1&fp=610e7dd948e54cca

Tags: Web Development

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