As of August 2012, all browsers seem to show an all-or-nothing approach to buffering. In other words, while php is operating, no content can be shown.
In particular this means that the following workarounds listed further down here are ineffective:
1) ob_flush (), flush () in any combination with other output buffering functions;
2) changes to php.ini involving setting output_buffer and/or zlib.output_compression to 0 or Off;
3) setting Apache variables such as "no-gzip" either through apache_setenv () or through entries in .htaccess.
So, until browsers begin to show buffered content again, the tips listed here are moot.