Reference

Brotli (.br)

Brotli is a lossless compression algorithm developed by Google, used widely to compress web pages, fonts, and assets. It typically achieves smaller sizes than gzip for text, which is why browsers and servers support it for faster page loads.

Files & formatsGeneral

Brotli (.br)

Also known as: Brotli compression, .br file, brotli web compression

Lossless compression developed by Google
Often smaller than gzip for web text
Widely used for HTTP content compression

Compression for the web

Brotli was designed primarily for HTTP content compression. For text resources like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it usually compresses better than gzip, meaning less data to download.

Modern browsers advertise Brotli support, and servers send `.br`-compressed responses when the client accepts them, speeding up page loads.

Brotli files and tools

You will sometimes see standalone .br files (for example, pre-compressed web assets). The brotli command-line tool and many libraries compress and decompress them.

For general-purpose archiving of arbitrary files, formats like 7z or zstd are more common; Brotli shines on web text.

Related terms

Keep reading the reference.

Files & formatsGZIP (.gz)GZIP is a fast, single-file compressor that produces .gz files. It compresses one file at a time, so to pack a whole folder it is combined with TAR into a tar.gz. It is the default compression behind much of the web and Unix tooling.General Storage conceptsCompression (lossy vs lossless)Compression shrinks a file by encoding its data more efficiently. Lossless compression rebuilds the original exactly, while lossy compression permanently discards detail the eye or ear is least likely to notice in exchange for much smaller files.General Files & formatsXZXZ is a single-file compressor that uses LZMA2 to reach a very high compression ratio — typically the smallest of the common Unix formats. It pairs with TAR as tar.xz and is widely used for software releases and Linux packages.General