If the file is no longer being modified, you could gzip/zip it and offer that as an alternative if the browser supports compressed content (it will be in the accept part of the incoming request headers).

You should get really good compression rates with plain text.

If the file is still being modified then your choices for compression are a bit limited. Compressing on the fly *may* work but I wouldn't be surprised if the compressor needed to keep the file *as-is* while it ran. That opens up a whole new can of worms naturally :)

HTH, S