[wingi]

Gzip will fix this problem. But these ebessed imgaes are not cache-able.

[neallindsay]

Gzip or Brotli will help, but the result will still be bigger when base64 is in the middle.

[Sohcahtoa82]

The only problem with using any sort of compression in HTTP is that unless you add extra countermeasures, you open your page up to the BREACH vulnerability:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREACH