Install brotli with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage

Commands and aliases

• brotli

Project history

Google announced Brotli as an open-source compression algorithm in September 2015, positioning it as a successor in spirit to Zopfli but with a new data format rather than Deflate compatibility. The announcement credited the format's density to context modeling, entropy-code reuse, a larger sliding window, and a static dictionary, and noted that the name means small bread in Swiss German.

The IETF published RFC 7932 in July 2016 as the authoritative specification for the Brotli compressed data format. The RFC defines a lossless format using LZ77 and Huffman coding, notes that the format is independent of CPU and operating system, registers the `br` HTTP content coding, and records Brotli as an integral part of WOFF 2.0.

Adoption history

Brotli adoption moved quickly from Google's open-source release into browser and server infrastructure. Chrome Platform Status tracks the `Accept-Encoding: br` feature for HTTPS connections, and RFC 7932's IANA registration made `br` the standard content-coding token.

Package-manager adoption is unusually broad because Brotli is both an end-user CLI and a build/runtime dependency for web servers, language bindings, font pipelines, browsers, and package ecosystems. The input package facts list Alpine, Homebrew, Debian, Fedora, MacPorts, Nix, Arch, Scoop, Ubuntu, Winget, and openSUSE packages.

How it is used

The command-line tool compresses and decompresses files, while the library is used by HTTP servers, CDNs, browsers, package managers, build systems, and font tooling. In web deployment, Brotli is commonly used for precompressed static assets or dynamic HTTPS responses advertised with `Content-Encoding: br`.

Why package nerds care

Brotli is package-nerd catnip because it is a tiny-looking formula with enormous transitive significance: installable as one CLI, but embedded in the web stack as a standard content coding. It is also a reminder that compression tools are not just archivers; they become protocol features, browser compatibility questions, build-pipeline knobs, and distro security-maintenance surfaces.

Timeline

• 2013: Google publishes Zopfli, the Deflate-compatible predecessor cited in the Brotli announcement.
• 2015-09-22: Google announces and open-sources Brotli.
• 2016: Chrome Platform Status tracks `Accept-Encoding: br` for HTTPS connections.
• 2016-07: RFC 7932 publishes the Brotli compressed data format and registers the `br` HTTP content coding.
• 2020s: Brotli is packaged broadly across Unix, Windows, and language ecosystems.

Related projects

• Related compression projects include Zopfli, zlib/Deflate/gzip, zstd, LZMA/xz, bzip2, libdeflate, and WOFF2 tooling. Brotli's closest historical sibling is Zopfli, while its web-deployment peer is gzip and its modern compression peer is often zstd.

Sources

• https://chromestatus.com/feature/5420797577396224
• https://github.com/google/brotli#readme
• https://opensource.googleblog.com/2015/09/introducing-brotli-new-compression.html
• https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7932.html
• source_facts.package-manager