One of the major factors in site load times is a proper file compression, both for images and code. File compression is not just a part of user experience, improving site load times before your visitor clicks away; it is also a factor in search engine algorithms, with faster sites ranking higher in search results. With that said, compressing your files is a very good thing and we’ll be looking at three tools to get us started.
FileOptimizer
Platform: Windows
Software compresses images such as JPG, GIF and PNG, but can also work with executables, archives, Microsoft Office documents and PDFs.
Compression test results, relative to original file size:
PNG - 42.2%
JPEG - 17.7%
GIF - 15.9%
site link
ImageOptim
Platform: Mac
ImageOptim — Mac software that optimizes GIF, JPEG and PNG, and also works as interface for other apps: : PNGOUT, AdvPNG, Pngcrush, OptiPNG, JpegOptim, jpegrescan, jpegtran and Gifsicle. Almost lossless compression in terms of quality, removing mostly unused metadata without reducing number of colors or using specific compression algorithm. Convenient drag and drop interface for one or multiple files.
Compression test results, relative to original file size:
PNG - 87.59%,
JPEG - 31.2%
GIF - 28.88%
site link
Smush. It
Platform: browser-based
Yahoo-based service will compress multiple files up to 1 MB each, with results available as ZIP archive.
Compression test results, relative to original file size:
PNG - 18.2%
JPEG - 17.3%
GIF - 39.6%
site link