Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

FEAD Compressing Compressed Files by 50-75%?

Posted by Cliff on from the if-it-seems-that-way-it-probably-is dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "I just installed Acrobat Reader and found that it was using FEAD which claims - 'FEAD© Optimizer© significantly reduces the size of application programs on average by 50% (in some cases up to 75%, depending on the specific software), even when they are already compressed with common compression technology like ZIP or CAB.' . It seems that they optimize each application individually at thieir labs. But an average of 50% compression on already compressed binary files seems to be too good to be true. Anyone familiar with how someone may be able to achieve this?"

3 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Compression is easy by cybermage · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's decompressing the file that's hard.

    You can compress all your files down to a single bit using this patented two step process:

    1. Discard all zeros.
    2. Use one to represent any length sequence of ones.

    This is as reliable a compression scheme as most backups to tape I've ever seen, and you can fit a huge number of files onto a single floppy.

    --
    Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
    1. Re:Compression is easy by optikSmoke · · Score: 5, Funny

      Thats too easy.

      First, you expand the 1 to the requisite number of 1s:
      1 -> 1111111

      Then, reinsert the 0s:
      1111111 -> 1101101001001

      Thus, 1 -> 1101101001001

  2. How to do anything by kurosawdust · · Score: 5, Funny
    "Anyone familiar with how someone may be able to achieve this?"

    "Lying through one's teeth" comes to mind...