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The performance difference between https and http depends on a ton of factors. The reason you don't see a performance difference between these two requests is m
by JangoSteve 16y ago
The performance difference between https and http depends on a ton of factors. The reason you don't see a performance difference between these two requests is most likely because:
-Google's servers are big enough they can easily handle the extra load of encryption without breaking a sweat
-One of the many factors that makes SSL slower is that assets will not be cached in a shared cached (e.g. a proxy server), and will also not be cached in a browser beyond a single session (usually). So, stylesheets, javascripts, and images, must be downloaded to the browser much more often.
Note that your wget test completely ignores this last point, because it is not trying to cache anything for either https or http.
- mike-cardwell 16y agoRegarding your second point. I'd be interested to see figures for how many web requests globally are fulfilled by a shared cache. My gut feeling is that it is a very small proportion of the total.
- JangoSteve 16y agoYeah, I'd be interested too. Though, entire web requests wouldn't be fulfilled by a shared cache, just cached assets with proper Expires headers, such as javascripts, stylesheets, etc. I actually wouldn't be incredibly surprised to learn that shared caches in proxy servers are quite efficient at serving cached content. If you think about it, it's in internet providers' best interest to make their proxy servers good at caching, because it would allow them to provide more content to their customers with less bandwidth, which of course affects their bottom-line.