bbPress.org

You should be able to see the version of PHP on the sidebar of your cPanel. Your host will most likely have upgraded to 5 by now.

You would also have to contact an administrator and ask if zlib is enabled. In most cases, it is.

By the way, the compression doesn’t completely speed up your website, it simple increases it’s performance. In some cases, one would notice a speed difference.

Is your website way too slow?