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Exhaustive Data Compressor Comparison

Posted by kdawson on from the pick-one-smaller-or-faster dept.

crazyeyes writes "This is easily the best article I've seen comparing data compression software. The author tests 11 compressors: 7-zip, ARJ32, bzip2, gzip, SBC Archiver, Squeez, StuffIt, WinAce, WinRAR, WinRK, and WinZip. All are tested using 8 filesets: audio (WAV and MP3), documents, e-books, movies (DivX and MPEG), and pictures (PSD and JPEG). He tests them at different settings and includes the aggregated results. Spoilers: WinRK gives the best compression but operates slowest; AJR32 is fastest but compresses least."

2 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. Skip the blogspam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative


    as its slashdotted

    this site
    http://www.maximumcompression.com/
    has been up for years and performs tests on all the compressors with various input sources, much more comprehensive

  2. Exhaustive?! by jagilbertvt · · Score: 5, Informative

    It seems odd that they didn't include executables/dlls in the comparison (where maxmumcompression.com does). I also find it odd that they are compressing items that normally don't compress very well with most data compression programs (divx/mpegs/jpegs/etc). I'm guessing this is why 7-zip ranked a bit lower than most.

    I did some comparison last year, and found 7-zip to do the best job for what I needed (great compression ratio without requiring days to complete). It also doesn't take into account the network speed at which the file is going to be transmitted. I use 7-zipfor pushing application updates and such to remote offices (most over 384k/768k WAN links). Compressing w/ 7-zip has saved users quite a bit of time compared to winrar or winzip.

    I would definitely recommend checking out maximumcompression.com (As others have, as well) over this article. It goes into a lot greater detail.