Really simple short string compression

Question

Is there a really simple compression technique for strings up to about 255 characters in length (yes, I\'m compressing URLs)?

I am not concerned with the strength o

Answer 1

You can use deflate algorithm directly, without any headers checksums or footers, as described in this question: Python: Inflate and Deflate implementations

This cuts down a 4100 character URL to 1270 base64 characters, in my test, allowing it to fit inside IE's 2000 limit.

And here's an example of a 4000-character URL, which can't be solved with a hashtable since the applet can exist on any server.