My .htaccess file for use with CodeIgniter. Based on H5BP .htaccess

.htaccess

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Better website experience for IE users
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# Force the latest IE version, in various cases when it may fall back to IE7 mode
#  github.com/rails/rails/commit/123eb25#commitcomment-118920
# Use ChromeFrame if it's installed for a better experience for the poor IE folk

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header set X-UA-Compatible "IE=Edge,chrome=1"
    # mod_headers can't match by content-type, but we don't want to send this header on *everything*...
    <FilesMatch "\.(js|css|gif|png|jpe?g|pdf|xml|oga|ogg|m4a|ogv|mp4|m4v|webm|svg|svgz|eot|ttf|otf|woff|ico|webp|appcache|manifest|htc|crx|xpi|safariextz|vcf)$" >
      Header unset X-UA-Compatible
    </FilesMatch>
</IfModule>


# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Webfont access
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# Allow access from all domains for webfonts.
# Alternatively you could only whitelist your
# subdomains like "subdomain.example.com".

<FilesMatch "\.(ttf|ttc|otf|eot|woff|font.css)$">
  <IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
  </IfModule>
</FilesMatch>



# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Proper MIME type for all files
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------


# JavaScript
#   Normalize to standard type (it's sniffed in IE anyways) 
#   tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4329#section-7.2
AddType application/javascript         js

# Audio
AddType audio/ogg                      oga ogg
AddType audio/mp4                      m4a

# Video
AddType video/ogg                      ogv
AddType video/mp4                      mp4 m4v
AddType video/webm                     webm

# SVG.
#   Required for svg webfonts on iPad
#   twitter.com/FontSquirrel/status/14855840545
AddType     image/svg+xml              svg svgz 
AddEncoding gzip                       svgz
                                       
# Webfonts                             
AddType application/vnd.ms-fontobject  eot
AddType application/x-font-ttf    ttf ttc
AddType font/opentype                  otf
AddType application/x-font-woff        woff

# Assorted types                                      
AddType image/x-icon                   ico
AddType image/webp                     webp
AddType text/cache-manifest            appcache manifest
AddType text/x-component               htc
AddType application/x-chrome-extension crx
AddType application/x-xpinstall        xpi
AddType application/octet-stream       safariextz
AddType text/x-vcard                   vcf



# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Gzip compression
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>

# Force deflate for mangled headers developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/12/pushing-beyond-gzipping/
<IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
  <IfModule mod_headers.c>
    SetEnvIfNoCase ^(Accept-EncodXng|X-cept-Encoding|X{15}|~{15}|-{15})$ ^((gzip|deflate)\s*,?\s*)+|[X~-]{4,13}$ HAVE_Accept-Encoding
    RequestHeader append Accept-Encoding "gzip,deflate" env=HAVE_Accept-Encoding
  </IfModule>
</IfModule>

# HTML, TXT, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, XML, HTC:
<IfModule filter_module>
  FilterDeclare   COMPRESS
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $text/html
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $text/css
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $text/plain
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $text/xml
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $text/x-component
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/javascript
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/json
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/xml
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/xhtml+xml
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/rss+xml
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/atom+xml
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/vnd.ms-fontobject
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $image/svg+xml
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $application/x-font-ttf
  FilterProvider  COMPRESS  DEFLATE resp=Content-Type $font/opentype
  FilterChain     COMPRESS
  FilterProtocol  COMPRESS  DEFLATE change=yes;byteranges=no
</IfModule>

<IfModule !mod_filter.c>
  # Legacy versions of Apache
  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/css application/json
  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml application/xml text/x-component
  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml application/rss+xml application/atom+xml
  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml application/vnd.ms-fontobject application/x-font-ttf font/opentype
</IfModule>
</IfModule>



# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Expires headers (for better cache control)
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# These are pretty far-future expires headers.
# They assume you control versioning with cachebusting query params like
#   <script src="application.js?20100608">
# Additionally, consider that outdated proxies may miscache 
#   www.stevesouders.com/blog/2008/08/23/revving-filenames-dont-use-querystring/

# If you don't use filenames to version, lower the CSS  and JS to something like
#   "access plus 1 week" or so.

<IfModule mod_expires.c>
  ExpiresActive on

# Perhaps better to whitelist expires rules? Perhaps.
  ExpiresDefault                          "access plus 1 month"

# cache.appcache needs re-requests in FF 3.6 (thanks Remy ~Introducing HTML5)
  ExpiresByType text/cache-manifest       "access plus 0 seconds"

# Your document html 
  ExpiresByType text/html                 "access plus 0 seconds"
  
# Data
  ExpiresByType text/xml                  "access plus 0 seconds"
  ExpiresByType application/xml           "access plus 0 seconds"
  ExpiresByType application/json          "access plus 0 seconds"

# Feed
  ExpiresByType application/rss+xml       "access plus 1 hour"
  ExpiresByType application/atom+xml      "access plus 1 hour"

# Favicon (cannot be renamed)
  ExpiresByType image/x-icon              "access plus 1 week" 

# Media: images, video, audio
  ExpiresByType image/gif                 "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType image/png                 "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType image/jpg                 "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType image/jpeg                "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType video/ogg                 "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType audio/ogg                 "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType video/mp4                 "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType video/webm                "access plus 1 month"
  
# HTC files  (css3pie)
  ExpiresByType text/x-component          "access plus 1 month"
  
# Webfonts
  ExpiresByType font/truetype             "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType font/opentype             "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType application/x-font-woff   "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType image/svg+xml             "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject "access plus 1 month"
    
# CSS and JavaScript
  ExpiresByType text/css                  "access plus 1 year"
  ExpiresByType application/javascript    "access plus 1 year"
  
  <IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header append Cache-Control "public"
  </IfModule>
  
</IfModule>



# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# ETag removal
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# FileETag None is not enough for every server.
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
  Header unset ETag
</IfModule>

# Since we're sending far-future expires, we don't need ETags for
# static content.
#   developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags
FileETag None


# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Start rewrite engine
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# Turning on the rewrite engine is necessary for the following rules and features.
# FollowSymLinks must be enabled for this to work.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  Options +FollowSymlinks
  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]
</IfModule>


# Rewrite "www.example.com -> example.com" 
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^ http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

# Rewrite "example.com -> www.example.com" 
# <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
#   RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
#   RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\..+$ [NC]
#   RewriteRule ^ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
# </IfModule>


# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Prevent 404 errors for non-existing redirected folders
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# without -MultiViews, Apache will give a 404 for a rewrite if a folder of the same name does not exist 
#   e.g. /blog/hello : webmasterworld.com/apache/3808792.htm

Options -MultiViews 



# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Custom 404 page
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# You can add custom pages to handle 500 or 403 pretty easily, if you like.
ErrorDocument 404 /error/not_found/



# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# UTF-8 encoding
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# Use UTF-8 encoding for anything served text/plain or text/html
AddDefaultCharset utf-8

# Force UTF-8 for a number of file formats
AddCharset utf-8 .html .css .js .xml .json .rss .atom



# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# A little more security
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------


# "-Indexes" will have Apache block users from browsing folders without a default document
# Usually you should leave this activated, because you shouldn't allow everybody to surf through
# every folder on your server (which includes rather private places like CMS system folders).
Options -Indexes


# Block access to "hidden" directories whose names begin with a period. This
# includes directories used by version control systems such as Subversion or Git.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteRule "(^|/)\." - [F]
</IfModule>


# Increase cookie security
<IfModule php5_module>
  php_value session.cookie_httponly true
</IfModule>

woaah.. it works like charm. thanks man.