Computers & Electronics

Best File Compressor

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  • Jul 21st, 2010 5:15 pm
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Deal Addict
Mar 28, 2007
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Best File Compressor

So I personally use 7-zip, since its free and snappy, but a lot of people like the popular "winrar" or "winzip".

http://eceplayground.com/2010/07/11/fil ... -the-best/

that article basically tests out winzip, winrar, winace, 7zip, and windows default compressor side by side to see whats the best :P

What do you guys use for compression? I always hated the nagging screen in winrar, so have avoided it. 7zip is my favorite
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Jun 19, 2010
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OnTheRFDPlace
Winrar...

What nagging screen?
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Jan 28, 2005
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what i would of like to of seen in those test was time to compress and uncompress
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Sep 15, 2004
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hurley_bernard wrote: Winrar...

What nagging screen?
Picked up a winrar 3.1 legit with registration from many moons ago as a freebee from the site itself (someone's birthday and it was only 24 hours). I haven't updated since, best software... but it no longer handles everything.
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Mar 28, 2007
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lithiumli wrote: what i would of like to of seen in those test was time to compress and uncompress
Hmm yes, agreed.

but for me personally, when i need to compress, i look at which program does the best compression first, speed is not a priority, guess it depends also on your systems power
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Jun 27, 2004
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I use RAR archives, since it's the most common/popular, so I don't have to worry about people asking me dumbshizz questions about extracting files.



> but for me personally, when i need to compress, i look at which program does the best compression first, speed is not a priority, guess it depends also on your systems power

How CPU extensive is a criteria for me. For example, in audio, APE can yield slightly smaller files than FLAC, but the amount of CPU APE requires, even when decoding, is a turnoff.
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Aug 2, 2004
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East Gwillimbury
Another 7Zip user here.

I absolutely hate WinZIP.

WinRar is better, but the nag screen is a pain.

7Zip is free and I like it the most. It is a little buggy, but I usually just exit and try again.
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Jul 27, 2002
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I use peazip, its puts a GUI around command line 7zip. works nice I like it. best of all I like its 64b version!
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Deal Expert
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Oct 13, 2002
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Amourek wrote: Given how cheap storage is today, those tests are all but irrelevant for most users. Speed is key.
I agree ... Although I use WinRAR/7Zip, I only use them to 'package' the files and folders. And I choose the "Store" (0% compression) option. It's as fast as your HDs can read/write.
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Amourek wrote: Given how cheap storage is today, those tests are all but irrelevant for most users. Speed is key.
True. These compression programs are mainly used to pack many small files into one package to send around for convenience. The actual compression is not really of much concern. Plus, they are only able to compress compressible files. Things like H264, MP3 and even the new Office .x files are not compressible.
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board123 wrote: True. These compression programs are mainly used to pack many small files into one package to send around for convenience. The actual compression is not really of much concern. Plus, they are only able to compress compressible files. Things like H264, MP3 and even the new Office .x files are not compressible.
Yup ... The .x files from Office 2007/2010 are actually Zip/RAR files already. We can 'unzip' .x files to retrieve the real content if you really need to ....
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willy wrote: Yup ... The .x files from Office 2007/2010 are actually Zip/RAR files already. We can 'unzip' .x files to retrieve the real content if you really need to ....
I think it's Zip since Rar is a proprietary format.
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Feb 24, 2007
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board123 wrote: True. These compression programs are mainly used to pack many small files into one package to send around for convenience. The actual compression is not really of much concern. Plus, they are only able to compress compressible files. Things like H264, MP3 and even the new Office .x files are not compressible.

mp3 is already a compressed file.
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eldiablo wrote: mp3 is already a compressed file.
Yeah that's why it's incompressible.
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Interesting, i never knew .x office files were already .zip compressed
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blackdragon12 wrote: Interesting, i never knew .x office files were already .zip compressed
You can open them up in Winrar or whatnot and access the XML files inside, hence the "x" moniker in the extension. This is why the same document will be much smaller if you save it in docx as opposed to doc.
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Aug 28, 2007
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winrar is best for a program with a GUI because it utilizes up to 4 cores and takes advantage of hyperthreading (good for core i7 and other HT processors)
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