Choose a version:
43% The original file has 183184 bytes (178.9k) and is available from the project website.
There you can find the official minified version, too, which brings down the size to 78601 bytes (76.8k, 43%).

After GZIP compression these minified files vary in size:
cdnjs
  27278 bytes (26.6k)
CDN
gzip -6 (default)
  27126 bytes (26.5k)
local copy
Google
  27106 bytes (26.5k)
CDN
gzip -9
  27098 bytes (26.5k)
local copy
jsdelivr
  27090 bytes (26.5k)
CDN
libdeflate -12
  26245 bytes (25.6k)
local copy
7zip -mx=9 -tgzip
  26238 bytes (25.6k)
local copy
zultra
  26205 bytes (25.6k)
local copy
kzip -s0 -rn -b2
  26184 bytes (25.6k)
local copy
pigz -11 -n
  26182 bytes (25.6k)
local copy
Zopfli
  26155 bytes (25.5k)
local copy

perma-link to the smallest file on my server:
http://minime.stephan-brumme.com/files/jquery/jquery-1.4.4.min.js (or via HTTPS)

You will automatically get the smallest jQuery 1.4.4 file, ETag caching is available and
if your browser doesn't support GZIP decompression then the uncompressed version will be sent.

Currently best Zopfli settings

Save 935 bytes by using my jQuery 1.4.4 Zopfli version instead of the best available CDN (3.57% smaller than jsdelivr, 26155 vs. 27090 bytes):
You can use my super-compressed files for whatever purpose you like as long as you respect the library's original license agreement.
There are no restrictions from my side - but please avoid hot-linking if you run a high-traffic website.

These command-line settings yielded the best compression ratio so far (Linux version of zopfli-krzymod):
zopfli --i100000 --mb8 --mls16 --bsr2 --lazy --ohh

(found November 23, 2015)
Description Value Parameter
iterations 100000  --i100000
maximum blocks 8  --mb8
maximum length score 16  --mls16
block splitting recursion 2  --bsr2
lazy matching in LZ77 yes  --lazy
optimized Huffman headers yes  --ohh
initial random W for iterations 1  --rw1
initial random Z for iterations 2  --rz2

Verify file integrity

After decompression, my uncompressed files are identical to the original ones:

MD5:
curl --silent --compressed https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.4.4.min.js --location | md5sum
73a9c334c5ca71d70d092b42064f6476  -
curl --silent --compressed https://minime.stephan-brumme.com/files/jquery/jquery-1.4.4.min.zopfli.js.gz | md5sum
73a9c334c5ca71d70d092b42064f6476  -

SHA1:
curl --silent --compressed https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.4.4.min.js --location | sha1sum
b75990598ee8d3895448ed9d08726af63109f842  -
curl --silent --compressed https://minime.stephan-brumme.com/files/jquery/jquery-1.4.4.min.zopfli.js.gz | sha1sum
b75990598ee8d3895448ed9d08726af63109f842  -

All listed CDNs deliver identical contents:
CDN Size (compressed) MD5 (uncompressed) Timestamp
cdnjs 27278 bytes 73a9c334c5ca71d70d092b42064f6476 (invalid)
Google 27106 bytes 73a9c334c5ca71d70d092b42064f6476 (invalid)
jsdelivr 27090 bytes 73a9c334c5ca71d70d092b42064f6476 (invalid)

Note: only the MD5 hashes are shown to keep things simple.

Other Versions

Available jQuery versions at minime.stephan-brumme.com:

3.6.1, 3.6.0,
3.5.1, 3.5.0,
3.4.1, 3.4.0,
3.3.1, 3.3.0,
3.2.1, 3.2.0,
3.1.1, 3.1.0, 3.0.0,
2.2.4, 2.2.3, 2.2.2, 2.2.1, 2.2.0,
2.1.4, 2.1.3, 2.1.2, 2.1.1, 2.1.0,
2.0.3, 2.0.2, 2.0.1, 2.0.0,
1.12.4, 1.12.3, 1.12.2, 1.12.1, 1.12.0,
1.11.3, 1.11.2, 1.11.1, 1.11.0,
1.10.2, 1.10.1, 1.10.0,
1.9.1, 1.9.0,
1.8.3, 1.8.2, 1.8.1, 1.8.0,
1.7.2, 1.7.1, 1.7.0,
1.6.4, 1.6.3, 1.6.2, 1.6.1, 1.6,
1.5.2, 1.5.1, 1.5,
1.4.4, 1.4.3, 1.4.2, 1.4.1, 1.4,
1.3.2, 1.3.1, 1.3,
1.2.6, 1.2.5, 1.2.4, 1.2.3, 1.2.2, 1.2.1, 1.2,
1.1.4, 1.1.3, 1.1.2, 1.1.1, 1.1,
1.0.4, 1.0.3, 1.0.2, 1.0.1, 1.0

The project site contains an overview how well these versions were compressed.
Other interesting projects are AngularJS, BackboneJS, Bootstrap, D3, Dojo, Ember, Knockout, lodash, React, Socket.IO, ThreeJS, UnderscoreJS and Vue.

Changelog

Best Zopfli parameters so far:
Size Improvement Parameters Found
26155 bytes -3 bytes zopfli --i100000 --mls16 --bsr2 --lazy --ohh November 23, 2015 @ 11:31
26158 bytes -1 byte zopfli --i10000 --mls16 --bsr2 --lazy --ohh November 23, 2015 @ 10:40
26159 bytes -1 byte zopfli --i10000 --mls2 --bsr2 --lazy --ohh November 23, 2015 @ 10:39
26160 bytes -1 byte zopfli --i10000 --mls4 --bsr2 --lazy --ohh October 21, 2015 @ 15:56
26161 bytes -3 bytes zopfli --i100000 --mls512 --bsr12 --lazy --ohh September 2, 2015 @ 00:55
26164 bytes -2 bytes zopfli --i10000 --mls512 --bsr12 --lazy --ohh September 1, 2015 @ 21:15
26166 bytes -3 bytes zopfli --i1000 --mls512 --bsr6 --lazy --ohh September 1, 2015 @ 20:38
26169 bytes zopfli --i100 --mls512 --bsr16 --lazy --ohh September 1, 2015 @ 20:18

If there are multiple parameter sets yielding the same compressed size, only the first one found is shown.

Most recent activity on July 20, 2020 @ 12:49.

Heatmaps

This Zopfli heatmap visualizes how compression changes when modifying the --bsr and --mls parameter.
Cell's contents is the best filesize achieved (in bytes, hover with mouse over cells to see number of iterations).

Good parameters are green, bad are red. The best and worst are bold as well.
The brightness of the blue background color indicates how many iterations were processed:
10,000 or 100,000.
bsr \ mls
2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024 2048 4096 8192 16384 32768
bsr \ mls
2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024 2048 4096 8192 16384 32768
26156 26160 26169 26155 26169 26164 26165 26164 26169 26175 26161 26171 26164 26161 26160
26172 26174 26173 26170 26175 26162 26171 26165 26163 26165 26172 26165 26170 26178 26165
26166 26172 26166 26174 26165 26172 26171 26172 26163 26171 26163 26164 26164 26168 26165
26170 26167 26164 26162 26164 26162 26160 26164 26167 26170 26167 26165 26167 26165 26167
26172 26171 26167 26172 26173 26171 26172 26172 26164 26165 26164 26163 26163 26166 26165
26172 26172 26167 26171 26172 26161 26172 26172 26164 26170 26163 26162 26163 26168 26166
26164 26167 26174 26170 26175 26171 26171 26172 26164 26170 26163 26165 26162 26165 26166
26172 26166 26167 26170 26175 26160 26172 26165 26169 26163 26163 26163 26164 26165 26166
26172 26171 26172 26164 26172 26170 26171 26172 26161 26170 26163 26163 26162 26164 26164
26162 26167 26171 26172 26164 26170 26171 26171 26163 26165 26172 26164 26163 26166 26165
26164 26163 26163 26173 26172 26171 26172 26162 26165 26163 26162 26165 26163 26165 26165
26172 26172 26164 26171 26172 26171 26172 26172 26167 26164 26164 26163 26164 26167 26168
26167 26168 26167 26170 26173 26171 26171 26171 26163 26164 26164 26163 26163 26167 26167
26171 26175 26166 26170 26174 26171 26172 26171 26172 26169 26164 26164 26162 26165 26166
26171 26167 26167 26174 26175 26171 26172 26165 26163 26170 26163 26163 26163 26167 26168
26172 26171 26167 26172 26175 26172 26171 26171 26169 26165 26165 26163 26162 26166 26167
26172 26171 26175 26172 26172 26172 26171 26163 26163 26170 26172 26163 26164 26167 26165
26172 26174 26164 26172 26172 26163 26172 26172 26162 26164 26163 26163 26163 26167 26166
26172 26169 26166 26170 26172 26171 26172 26173 26164 26171 26171 26164 26163 26165 26164
26164 26166 26166 26173 26172 26172 26165 26171 26164 26163 26162 26163 26164 26164 26166
26164 26165 26174 26164 26175 26171 26172 26162 26164 26163 26162 26165 26164 26167 26169
26172 26169 26175 26164 26174 26171 26171 26155 26163 26164 26163 26164 26162 26165 26165
26172 26167 26170 26168 26173 26161 26172 26171 26164 26163 26163 26163 26163 26166 26166

Due to the Monte Carlo design of my search algorithm, not all parameters have reached the same number of iterations yet:
Iterations Min. Bytes Reduction Coverage
100 26164 bytes 100%
1,000 26161 bytes -3 bytes 100%
10,000 26158 bytes -3 bytes 100%
100,000 26155 bytes -3 bytes 1.16%
1,000,000
10,000,000

KZIP has far less options available for tuning/optimization. I only played around with the number of blocks (parameter -n):
Blocks Min. Bytes Compared To Best Zopfli Compared To Best KZIP
26263 bytes +108 bytes (+0.41%) +79 bytes
26262 bytes +107 bytes (+0.41%) +78 bytes
26184 bytes +29 bytes (+0.11%)
26226 bytes +71 bytes (+0.27%) +42 bytes
26215 bytes +60 bytes (+0.23%) +31 bytes
26197 bytes +42 bytes (+0.16%) +13 bytes
26235 bytes +80 bytes (+0.31%) +51 bytes
26255 bytes +100 bytes (+0.38%) +71 bytes
26281 bytes +126 bytes (+0.48%) +97 bytes

Non-DEFLATE Algorithms

Archivers based on completely different compression algorithms often produce superior results.
Unfortunately, browsers only support gzip compression at the moment.
However, support for Brotli is constantly growing - but your browser doesn't support it.
Algorithm Program Parameters Size Compared To Best Zopfli
ZPAQ (Wikipedia) zpaq zpaq -method 69 21491 bytes -4664 bytes (-17.83%)
RAR (proprietary) RAR rar a -m5 -md64m -mc63:128t -mt1 22103 bytes -4052 bytes (-15.49%)
PPMd (Wikipedia) 7zip 7za a -mx=9 -m0=ppmd 23090 bytes -3065 bytes (-11.72%)
Brotli (Wikipedia) brotli brotli -q 11 24229 bytes -1926 bytes (-7.36%)
Burrows-Wheeler transform (Wikipedia) bzip2 bzip2 -9 24877 bytes -1278 bytes (-4.89%)
LZMA2 (Wikipedia) xz xz -9 25376 bytes -779 bytes (-2.98%)
Zstandard (Wikipedia) zstd zstd -19 25833 bytes -322 bytes (-1.23%)

Detailled Analysis

I wrote a DEFLATE decoder in Javascript. Click the button below to start a client-side analysis of the smallest gzipped files (may take a second):


Notes: pigz is a fast open source multi-threaded implementation of gzip written by one of the original authors of gzip.
However, when using compression level 11, pigz actually switches to the slower Zopfli algorithm and isn't multi-threaded anymore.
KrzyMOD's extensions to Zopfli offer the highest level of configuration and is therefore used for my brute-force search.
Ken Silverman wrote the closed-source KZIP compression program and Jonathon Fowler ported it to Linux.
Defluff was created by Joachim Henke; DeflOpt is a tool by Ben Jos Walbeehm.

website made by Stephan Brumme in 2015 and still improving in 2024.
all timestamps are displayed in central european time. see my changelog.
no flash, not even images or external css files - and everything squeezed into a single html file.
which was handsomely compressed before releasing it into the wild internet - obviously.

please visit my homepage and my blog, too.
email: minime (at) stephan-brumme.com

All trademarks are property of their respective owners. You know, the boring legal stuff.