If you’re a frequent reader of our blog, you already know I’ll do almost anything to increase my page load by a couple of milliseconds.
HTTP/2 On Shared & Reseller Hosting Accounts
This is one reason why we use the LiteSpeed web server on all of our Shared and Reseller Hosting accounts. As long as a website is using https (which is free for all accounts) HTTP/2 is enabled.
For those unfamiliar, HTTP/2 (originally named HTTP/2.0) is a major revision of the HTTP network protocol used by the World Wide Web. It was derived from the earlier experimental SPDY protocol, originally developed by Google.
Simply put: HTTP/2 better-handles connections to your website and will help improve the overall performance.
Enable HTTP/2 Using Easy Apache 4
Those using our VPS hosting without LiteSpeed have been asking how they can enable HTTP/2 on their server.
Thankfully our friends over at cPanel have listened to these requests and now place the module directly inside Easy Apache 4.
During the cPanel conference this fall in Florida, I actually sat in on a session, where one of the developers gave a presentation about how easy it is to add.
All you have to do is go into Easy Apache 4 and select the module when compiling PHP with Apache.:
As you can see, unlike Easy Apache 3, it only takes a couple of minutes to run fully enabling HTTP/2 support on your website.
How To Test Your Website For HTTP/2
When you’re finished you can check using the following browser extensions:
- HTTP/2 and SPDY indicator (Chrome extension)
- HTTP/2 and SPDY indicator (Firefox extension)
- Firebug (Firefox)
If you really want to make the most out of your Virtual Private Server, make sure to enroll in our free VPS Hosting 101 course for additional performance and optimization tips ;).
Ryan Gray is the founder and CEO of NameHero, one of the fastest growing independent web hosts in the United States. Ryan has been working online since 1998 and has over two-decades experience in Internet Entrepreneurship.
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