I discovered today that it’s possible to compress static html with mod_gzip without uri rewriting with mod_rewrite and any hacky compression scripts. All you need is php with gzip enabled (check phpinfo) and rights to use/change your .htaccess

In the folder you want to compress add to your existing .htaccess (or create one if you don’t have one already)

#php”UNDERSCORE”value output”UNDERSCORE”handler ob”UNDERSCORE”gzhandler
AddType application/x-httpd-php .html