Random rant: 7-Zip (7z) file format

[zambelli]

Why, oh why, did we need another compressed archive file format? It took a good 15+ years of digital evolution to reduce the jungle of compressed file formats such as LHA, LZH, UC2, ACE and ARJ down to a reasonable two: ZIP and RAR. With Windows XP we even got native OS support for ZIP archives, leading the way to simple and painless dealing with most compressed files.

And just as we finally got comfortable with ZIP and RAR, suddenly this 7-Zip format comes out of nowhere! Before I can even ask what the hell it is, it's everywhere, on Doom9, on Sourceforge, its wannabe-cool ".7z" file extension staring me in the face and mocking me. Aaargh!

So what's my problem with 7z?

1) In an ideal world, compressed archives should be transparent. I don't want to worry about having to install 7-Zip software on every clean machine where I want to install *some other* piece of software that happens to be archived with 7z. Sure, it's just one extra step in the process, but it terms of usability, it's an unnecessary hassle. I know, I know, same thing can be said for RAR, but RAR came about at a different time when saving a few extra kilobytes made sense. There's nothing we can do now to make RAR go away.

2) Its authors boast up to 30% size improvements over ZIP, but who the hell cares? Are we still downloading over 14.4kbps modem lines? Are we still distributing software on 1.44Mb floppies? No! Most of the softwares I've seen distributed in .7z format so far have been small in size. Are those few hundred kilobytes really worth the hassle?

So I beg everyone distributing software in 7z format: Please, stop the madness. You might think you're doing your users a favor by saving them a few seconds of download time, but you're just creating an additional hassle for them.

[unskinnyboy]

FYI: WinRAR v3.40 and above supports 7z. So to decompress 7z archives, you only need the latest WinRAR. And here is another reason to use 7-zip over WinRAR: WinRAR costs $33.64 (incl. 16% TAX/VAT) for a single-user license or one has to live with that annoying pop-up message everytime one opens an archive. 7-zip is open source, free and multi-platform.

I use 7z all the time (I also use WinRAR, but I have uninstalled WinZip ages ago) and your uninformed rant isn't gonna stop me (or other OSS lovers). 7z is here to stay, so get over it.

[zambelli]

FYI: WinRAR v3.40 and above supports 7z. So to decompress 7z archives, you only need the latest WinRAR. And here is another reason to use 7-zip over WinRAR: WinRAR costs $33.64 (incl. 16% TAX/VAT) for a single-user license or one has to live with that annoying pop-up message everytime one opens an archive.
I never said I liked WinRAR. I'd rather not have to install it either, heh.

7-zip is open source, free and multi-platform.
What difference does it make if pretty much every OS already has native support for ZIP? Are you personally paying a fee to PKWare?

I use 7z all the time (I also use WinRAR, but I have uninstalled WinZip ages ago) and your uninformed rant isn't gonna stop me (or other OSS lovers). 7z is here to stay, so get over it.
Ah, I see. So this is another "OSS for the sake of OSS" technology? Nevermind its necessity as long as it's not patented by a company?

[GIR]

I don't get why people are so precious about different file formats, I mean I hear people whining about this stuff all the time "blah blah blah, why can’t it be AVI, I don’t like MKV..." "but AVI has better quality than MKV..." and now it's compressed archives? It's not that hard to install a little bit of software for these things.

The thing is people invented these improved formats for a reason, I don’t see why people are get so... I'm not sure what the right word is... but is it bit of nostalgia that is keeping people from using newer formats or something? :confused:

[Sirber]

XP native ZIP support makes me sick. It shouldn't been in it at the first place. Same for WMP ;)

7z is the best technology so far for data compression. I can put my 12GB M$ backup file in a sweet 2.1GB 7z file, so I can burn 2 archive on the same DVDR! ZIP and XP have a long long very long way to go before catching up on 7z :devil:

What difference does it make if pretty much every OS already has native support for ZIP? Are you personally paying a fee to PKWare?Show me a non XP OS with built-in ZIP support?

[unskinnyboy]

@zambelli, First of all, the core of your argument was that one would have to needlessly install 7-zip to open .7z files. I have already proved it wrong. So what is left of your argument is WinZip Vs. 7-zip now? If so, what are you going to do with all those zillion .rar files out there? You can't open them with WinZip!? So you need WinRAR anyway. So "I'd rather not install it" won't work here.

And it doesn't matter if every OS has native zip support - I hardly ever encounter zipped files anymore. And I don't use PKWare - never had to.

OSS is OSS. The power of it is unbeatable. Any capable developer can take the 7-zip source and better it or borrow code from it and create his own implementation of a better compression utility..the possibilities are endless. I LOVE OSS and will always support and use it.

[zambelli]

XP native ZIP support makes me sick. It shouldn't been in it at the first place. Same for WMP ;)
It makes you sick? Because it's convenient and allows everyone to read zip files? You're right. That's truly disgusting.

7z is the best technology so far for data compression. I can put my 12GB M$ backup file in a sweet 2.1GB 7z file, so I can burn 2 archive on the same DVDR! ZIP and XP have a long long very long way to go before catching up on 7z :devil:
Wait... You use MS backup? :)

Show me a non XP OS with built-in ZIP support?
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure every Linux distribution in existence comes with some form of zip, gzip, unzip, zlib - something.

[Revgen]

The reason why .7z is used comes down to one word.

Bandwith.

Bandwith costs money. Many webmasters, especially ones that run free download servers will save bandwith anyway they can.

As long as I'm able to download stuff for free off their servers, I personaly don't mind using a new compression format to dowload what they are offering.

And you shouldn't either, unless your willing to foot the bill.

[zambelli]

So what is left of your argument is WinZip Vs. 7-zip now? If so, what are you going to do with all those zillion .rar files out there? You can't open them with WinZip!? So you need WinRAR anyway. So "I'd rather not install it" won't work here.
I never even mentioned WinZip. I don't use it. It's not necessary on WinXP because the support is already there.
The core of my argument was the 7z wasn't necessary. I just don't see it bringing anything new to the table.

And it doesn't matter if every OS has native zip support - I hardly ever encounter zipped files anymore. And I don't use PKWare - never had to.
PKWare is the company that invented ZIP. Nobody actually uses their utilities anymore.
You see zillion .rar files, but no .zip files? We must live in completely different worlds. I'd say the ratio of .zip files to .rar files is at least 5:1. I can't remember the last time I downloaded, say, an Avisynth plugin in a .rar package.

OSS is OSS. The power of it is unbeatable. Any capable developer can take the 7-zip source and better it or borrow code from it and create his own implementation of a better compression utility..the possibilities are endless. I LOVE OSS and will always support and use it.
Once again, you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm not against OSS. I'm just irritated when people go re-inventing the wheel for no good reason other than to make an OSS version of it. On a large scale it can be a usability nightmare. ("What? I can't open this? I need another piece of software? What, I have the wrong version? The official build or the unofficial beta build?") Like, I love ffdshow, but I'd hate to have to explain to my mom how to configure it. :) Free does not always mean "better" by default.

[foxyshadis]

Sirber, actually, WinRK is by far the best (but at those settings it's also the slowest :p) and WinRK 3 and WinRAR 3 are both more efficient (size/time ratio) at more sane settings and often about the same size as 7z, just faster. Both are proprietary and pricey though.

Zam, what's with all the flaming? You obviously use WinRAR, which can open 7z. You may as well make the same argument about AVC while using VLC. It's a newer technology that some people like for whatever reason (it's free and hey, maybe they just like the interface! It sure isn't the speed...) and are willing to put up with less market penetration of the format, like people who used rar when it was new.

Also, if you go to japanese sites, lzh/zip ratio is almost 4:1. Then there's a little rar sprinkled around.

Personally I'm a lot more offended by people who compress jpegs and mpegs to get that extra .5% at the cost of inconvenience and speed, when the options are all available to "store" uncompressible formats. I couldn't care less what format they do it in.

[Neo Neko]

All I can say is this. Judging from your atitude and avatar zambelli you really like Microsoft etc.

ZIP is fine. It is always my fall back in case I am dealing with less technically capabe users or severely restricted system access. But outside of that ZIP is wholly inadequate. Though it helps that 7-zip can make ZIP files that are more efficient than basically any other ZIP program. So even if you want to stick with ZIP 7-zip still has a leg up.

ZIP and microsofts support of it are like most things Microsoft makes. Good enough but nowhere near the best. And the whole line that we should just stick with whatever in this case Microsoft bundles is just so much Microsoft pavlovian FUD.

You are just gonna have to learn to deal with progress. That or restrict your self and your external contacts to those that stay within the Microsoft sand box. Which would exclude you from interacting with any sort of technical forum such as this.

Next thing I expect I will find somewhere is a rant on people switching to ODF over MS DOC or future MS faux Open XML. Oh wait.............


Indeo decoding comes with most OS. What the hell are we messing with MPEG4 for? It's not like we don't have 150Gb drives to fit a single movie. And while we are on it what is up with all this MP3 crap?! Wasn't PCM good enough and compatable enough for everyone? And what's up with "shorts"? Are pants really to long? Or are shorts just fat midget pants that got fashionable?


Talk about silly pointless rants.

[communist]

~snip~
I could do the same with your obtrusive wma/wmv and MediaPlayer (version 7+) whereas the world was just fine with MPEG and 'older' versions of your MediaPlayer.

As for reduced size - if you're developing some software that does lossy / lossless compresses would you really boast with "up to 50% bigger files :D" ?
I dont see such slogans on Microsofts site about WMV :rolleyes:

If that hassle is too much for you or anyone else - you're free to not use it. The same story can be done with the .NET framework and many other things.
Big corporations like Microsoft / Real / Apple with their bloated, slow, obtrusive and file association kidnapping players should know better.

[dragongodz]

7z is the best technology so far for data compression.
actually i saw some tests done awhile ago showing other compression algorythms that actually did much better. they however would take many hours to compress what zip, rar or 7zip would do in minutes. so its a great new compression at a useable speed. ;)

WinRK 3 and WinRAR 3 are both more efficient (size/time ratio) at more sane settings and often about the same size as 7z, just faster.
well from my own experience actually doing a bunch of similar files(solid archive) 7zip can beat the bejesus out of winrar for end size.

The core of my argument was the 7z wasn't necessary. I just don't see it bringing anything new to the table.
it brings better compression pure and simple. thats all any new compression should be expected to bring. if you want it to make breakfast for you aswell then why not ask the older archivers that are still being developed to do that aswell ? :D

[mod]

Try compressing a 2 GB folder of various file types as I did yesterday..
7z isn't only a "new" format, it works better than ZIP, RAR et al. If there's people working on this project, improving the compression ratio, I think we must be grateful. They don't ask us a single cent, and offer a software that works fine.

And.. if you don't want to use it, just don't, as I'm never gonna encode WMV or WMA material...

[zambelli]

Why did this suddenly turn into a Microsoft vs. OSS thread? That wasn't my intention and if you guys are seeing it that way, you're the ones pushing the discussion in that direction, not me.

Judging from your atitude and avatar zambelli you really like Microsoft etc.
My attitude? But my argument is completely OS agnostic, I don't believe I have argued pro or against any particular OS or software ideology. To the best of my knowledge, all dominant operating systems (Windows, Linux and MacOS) have integrated ZIP support. Here's the quote from Wikipedia that supports that:

In the late 1990s, various file manager software products started integrating support for the ZIP format into the file manager user interface. The KDE file manager (kfm) supported this very early, and support was also added to Windows Explorer (as of Windows Me and Windows XP), the Mac OS Finder (as of Mac OS X, via the BOMArchiveHelper utility), the Nautilus file manager used with GNOME, the Konqueror file manager used with newer versions of KDE, and others. By 2002, all major desktop environments included ZIP file support in their file managers. Typically, in any modern file manager, a ZIP file may be treated as a directory or folder, so that files are copied into and out of it in the same manner as any other folder; the compression is handled in a way that is largely transparent to the end user. This eliminates the need for the user to learn to use a program and an interface just for the purpose of compression and archival, since the same interface can be used as for regular file management.
ZIP and microsofts support of it are like most things Microsoft makes. Good enough but nowhere near the best. And the whole line that we should just stick with whatever in this case Microsoft bundles is just so much Microsoft pavlovian FUD.
You're right, integrated zip support in XP doesn't offer much flexibility in terms of compression. However, for decompression, it's quite adequate, which is my main concern: being able to read and open archives available on the Internet.

I could do the same with your obtrusive wma/wmv and MediaPlayer (version 7+) whereas the world was just fine with MPEG and 'older' versions of your MediaPlayer.
I hope that wasn't a singular form of "your" because otherwise BillG owes me a lot of money. :)
I disagree. At the time when it was introduced (1999) ASF brought to the table capabilities that other media formats didn't have: variable framerate, multiple streams, markers (chapters), network streaming, integrated captions, rich metadata, etc. Anyway, that's a different topic - this one is about file compression.

And.. if you don't want to use it, just don't, as I'm never gonna encode WMV or WMA material...
But you can play WMV and WMA with any player, be it WMP, MPC, Zoom or whatever, so the comparison isn't on the level.

[Doom9]

Judging by emails I get, most people dont' even know what rar is. And if want to use the halfway useful password protection, you still need Winzip because other zippers only incorporate the old pkzip password encryption that can easily be cracked.

[dragongodz]

Why did this suddenly turn into a Microsoft vs. OSS thread? That wasn't my intention and if you guys are seeing it that way, you're the ones pushing the discussion in that direction, not me.
ummm i didnt you will notice. :)

I never said I liked WinRAR. I'd rather not have to install it either, heh.
i take it though that you do have to so you can handle rar archives aswell ? if so then as its already been said winrar can also decompress 7zip archives aswell. so you infact dont have to install another program(7zip) if you are only decompressing anyway. oh if you didnt want to fork out for winrar aswell then you could also just use 7zip to decompress zip,rar etc formats aswell. see you REALLY dont need to have multiple programs.

hmm maybe we should have just stuck with lzh since it can create smaller than source archives aswell. i mean what was the point of zip to begin with when there was already other archivers ?

[zambelli]

oh if you didnt want to fork out for winrar aswell then you could also just use 7zip to decompress zip,rar etc formats aswell. see you REALLY dont need to have multiple programs.
Yes, this is true. I mean, I have no choice. After all, I have no control over .rar and .7z files on the Internet, hence this post is titled "rant" - I just wanted to vent a little about an, IMHO, unnecessary new format on the file compression scene.

hmm maybe we should have just stuck with lzh since it can create smaller than source archives aswell. i mean what was the point of zip to begin with when there was already other archivers ?
I think everyone is forgetting to put things into historical context. I'm sure 7-Zip would've been a GREAT tool... in 1992, when every byte counted as we fought to fit our 10MB games onto 4 floppies. In 2006, when we're drowning in hard disk space, dual-layer DVDs and high-speed Internet - it just seems about a decade late to the party, that's all. :)

[Sirber]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure every Linux distribution in existence comes with some form of zip, gzip, unzip, zlib - something.They come as a package, if you want them. They are not built-in and you are not forced to have it.

and yes I use M$ backup at work. Not much sw backup can read "in use" files and backup them.

I think everyone is forgetting to put things into historical context. I'm sure 7-Zip would've been a GREAT tool... in 1992, when every byte counted as we fought to fit our 10MB games onto 4 floppies. In 2006, when we're drowning in hard disk space, dual-layer DVDs and high-speed Internet - it just seems about a decade late to the party, that's all. :)
well, when you host your site on your own home crappy DSL, every byte counts too ;)

[mod]

But you can play WMV and WMA with any player, be it WMP, MPC, Zoom or whatever, so the comparison isn't on the level.
You are right.
But I think that if someone wants to distribute some material, can do it in the way he/she wants.
"I give you this piece of software in this .*** format, if you want to use it, you'll need this ****** prog."

IMHO this is perfectly understandable. This doesn't mean that you are forced to install or use 7z for YOUR material.. :)

If the problem is that a lot of people doesn't even know 7z (in my personal experience only a few people know it) I can tell that after a couple of days using it ALL people I gave .7z files CHANGED from WinZIP or WinRAR to 7Zip, because WITHOUT being experts they saw that it worked better :)

The last thing..

And if want to use the halfway useful password protection, you still need Winzip
Password protection with WinZIP.. :D

[Sirber]

I heard WinZIP moved to AES, like winrar did. So it's not too bad ;)

[mod]

I heard WinZIP moved to AES, like winrar did
Since 9.0 if I remember (beginning 2004)
Let me think.. maybe I'll switch to it.. naaa :p

[dragongodz]

I think everyone is forgetting to put things into historical context. I'm sure 7-Zip would've been a GREAT tool... in 1992, when every byte counted as we fought to fit our 10MB games onto 4 floppies. In 2006, when we're drowning in hard disk space, dual-layer DVDs and high-speed Internet - it just seems about a decade late to the party, that's all.
well, when you host your site on your own home crappy DSL, every byte counts too
plus add in some people are still on dialup or have adsl that is shaped(speed reduce to dialup speeds) after a set amount downloaded(including web pages and email) because of cost. for example i have adsl but i get shaped after 300mb. now thats fine by me because its cheap. so i would rather have to download less when i can. ok for a 200k archive its probably not going to be much difference but the savings can be much more substantial for much larger sizes. so to say its no longer true that every byte counts may be true for you but for others it isnt. every megabyte does matter to me atleast and as Sirber said to atleast some running servers or sites etc aswell.

[Sharktooth]

What's all this fuss about 7z? It's free, it's opensource and compresses better than both zip and rar.
You dont want to get 1 file and install it? blame M$ for not producing an open source OS so the 7z support (as well as any other compression support) cant be added...

[Sirber]

Why not M$ bundeling WinRAR or 7zip with XP? ;)

[Sharktooth]

licenses...?

[asegura]

Installing 7zip is not a big hassle. The installer is compact, it integrates well with the shell and is quite easy to use (yet improvable).
I use it as my only archiving tool: it can read ZIP, RAR, TAR, LZH, etc, as well as 7z. And when using the 7z format it almost always compresses better than other widely used archivers. It uses AES for encryption and is OSS and 100% free. The 7z format has made its way into other tools like WinRAR. I only see advantages. :)

[dimzon]

Installing 7zip is not a big hassle. The installer is compact, it integrates well with the shell and is quite easy to use (yet improvable).
I use it as my only archiving tool: it can read ZIP, RAR, TAR, LZH, etc, as well as 7z. And when using the 7z format it almost always compresses better than other widely used archivers. It uses AES for encryption and is OSS and 100% free. The 7z format has made its way into other tools like WinRAR. I only see advantages. :)
100% Agreed

[mod]

100% Agreed

110% :D

[Sirber]

more and more % :devil:

[iradic]

you can install 7-zip instead winrar - 7-zip handles rar archives :)

[reepa]

I think Zambelli has a legimate point so cut him some slack. He brings up the unnecessity of yet another compression format, and others immediately bring up FOSS vs Microsoft and use that against him, which isn't fair IMO, because he wasn't trolling about the merits of proprietary software / formats in his initial post at all.

While it doesn't hurt to have yet another compression format, I put everything in ZIPs just for compatibility's sake. In most cases a few percent reduction doesn't matter much. I mostly use ZIP for the sake of bundling a large number of files together. The compression is a nice side effect. The bandwidth argument is very legimate though, and I can understand the decision to use .7z if your bandwidth is taxed by the megabytes.

As a (de)compression application 7-zip is magnificent and after discovering it I've replaced WinRar with it everywhere. I still keep WinRar for dealing with those occasional pesky ACEs.

[mod]

I don't think there's a MS vs FOSS discussion here. The point is that a LOT of people use ZIP just because they "find" in their PC an OS that already supports it.. If next MS releases would support 7z, then a lot of people wouldn't have any probl using it.. This is my opinion of course.

[Caroliano]

licenses...?
I don't think so. The FAQ (http://www.7-zip.org/faq.html) says that it is under LGPL, and somewere I saw that you can negociate the license with them.
As it is used more in opensource world, probably microsoft don't noted that yet, or simply don't think that adding suport for it compensate the effort (that shoud be minimal anyway).

Why, oh why, did we need another compressed archive file format?
The reason for a new compression method is always more compresion.

Of course, for end user probabily don't matter if it has to download a 100k or a 200k file, but for who is hosting matters, because the diference of size between the two options will be multiplied by hundreds, thousands or even millions of downloads.

If you want to download these things for free, then acept the format that is used, otherwise, don't download or pay the aditional cost.

[Malcolm]

I think everyone is forgetting to put things into historical context. I'm sure 7-Zip would've been a GREAT tool... in 1992, when every byte counted as we fought to fit our 10MB games onto 4 floppies. In 2006, when we're drowning in hard disk space, dual-layer DVDs and high-speed Internet - it just seems about a decade late to the party, that's all. :)

IMO it's *not* about how much space YOU need after you have downloaded whatever things onto your gigantic harddisc over your lightening fast internet connection.
It's about someone who offers some downloads for free. Think about 100.000 people downloading something that's 1mb in size compared to something that's 900kb in size. The difference is 10 gigabyte! And the guy who's offering this for free has to pay for 10 gig traffic!

[foxyshadis]

Of course, on the other side of the argument WinZIP and other zip makers now support zip64 and zip with ppmd (similar to rar/7z, and actually pretty decent), which aren't compatible with Microsoft's decoder or with any older decoders included in many other OSes and software. Using the zip extension rather than z64 or similar is probably a land grab by winzip but turns that format into a bit of an unstable land mine as well. (Much like the rar3 format; I still wish they'd at least had a "2.x compatibility" option.)

The problem with the enormous hard drive argument is that the data grows almost as fast as the space to hold it. :p Games are starting to come with 2 DVDs in some cases these days, most of them want to install it all on your system. ;_;

Oh, and I almost forgot, 7-zip has much more penetration across non-windows OSes, where until recently tgz was the only widely compatible to get better than zip compression. (Now bz2 is taking its place, but it still has the same multi-file problems.)

Actually, looking over a list of archiving utilities, most of them seem to support rar and 7z these days if they support anything other than zip (including winzip!). Compression formats are almost commoditized with everything opening everything else, a situation much better than a few years ago.

[Doom9]

I think zambelli has a point. Let's face it, most people don't know what .rar or .7z is... I should know since I regularly get emails asking about my rar downloads. Only Windows XP supports ZIP natively, but ZIP is a format that people even without the OS integration know.. and it's the only format most people know.

Being responsible for a high traffic website, I also see the traffic angle. But moving my downloads to 7z format is simply no option.. I don't need 100 emails per day asking what to do with 7z files.. in the end that would be much more of a hassle than a few GB traffic.

[zambelli]

But I think that if someone wants to distribute some material, can do it in the way he/she wants.
Yes, but look at that from the perspective of the software author: why would you want to distribute your software in a format that reaches significantly less users than a widely adopted format such as zip? That's the part that doesn't make sense to me. Of course everyone has a choice, but there's something to be said for (de facto) standards and compatibility as well.

To me file compression is more about easy and compact distribution and not so much about saving bytes. If you want to distribute software, you either pack it up or you write an installer app. Clearly, the former is sufficient for most needs.

If I go and write the world's coolest software app, is it in my best interest to distribute it in some common format (i.e. zip) or in my own rare but super efficient .xyz format?

[mod]

If I go and write the world's coolest software app, is it in my best interest to distribute it in some common format (i.e. zip) or in my own rare but super efficient .xyz format?
I think this is partially true, because (imho) if you make the coolest (free) software app, then you can distribute it in ANY WAY you decide: if it's the best people will spend a few minutes installing what they need. If they don't, just let them use something else which works worst.. they wouldn't pay you anyway :)
I know a lot of people that use TERRIBLE progs just because they're easy to use, and to install too: the important thing is WHAT's inside the archive :D
I really agree with you that distributing in an "easy" format is important, but.. WHEN has been decided that once the format is ZIP it has to remain that? :)

PS: Nice exchange of opinions in this thread.

[iradic]

well it's not like if there is no 7-zip format you would never have to install another archiver (never ever) ... most archivers support most archive formats so it's always one to be installed on the pc ... you can choose which one .. it's your choice ...

[snn47]

I compared in 2002 a number of packers ARJ, Powerarchiver, WinZip, WinRar WinACE and 7Zip and posted it at Thread at overclockers australia (http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89560)

I used for packing
-a scanned 2400dpi LH-boarding slip in various formats like tif, bmp, jpg q=10, gif,
-folders with office formats doc, txt, mdb, pdf,
-multimedia files wav, mp3, avi, divx,
- folder of internet-download from internet sites with te usual mix found there (1GB).

Since for archiving a short compression time doesn't count the zip-format nearly always achieved the worst compression efficiency (except gif)´similar to ARJ !!! I concentrated on cab, rar, ace, or 7zip

For different file-formats I found different efficiency and packing time. RAR looks good for scanned or grapic-formats and multimedia files, even highly packed formats can be squeezed at least one or a few more percent.

No packer is optimal for the file types I tried.

cab, rar and 7z look like the overall winner to me.

In average 7z provided the best overall compression, for some of the files/folders the best. It was slower compared to the others (Notebook W98 500MHz P3). /zip provided also better zip-compression then Winzip.

While I fully recommend 7zip for zip and the 7zip-format, RAR-support may still have some problems. Yesterday I had a rar file containing a DVD-driver that would not unpack without errors but wordked in WinRAR. But from experience with 7zip RAR will work soon also well. Maybee I will redo the test with the current program versions.

[Neo Neko]

Why did this suddenly turn into a Microsoft vs. OSS thread? That wasn't my intention and if you guys are seeing it that way, you're the ones pushing the discussion in that direction, not me.

You parrot alot of ms talking points almost verbatim. Am i a bit hawkish? perhaps. But largely because I see this stuff all the time. And I don't think this has become a MS vs. OSS argument either. This is an MS verses competition or stagnation for compatibilitys sake vs progress. It just so happens that about the only software that can compete with MS is OSS. And I am always for progress when everyone can play. Which 7-zip allows. In fact there is no reason MS could not incorporate 7-zip support if they wanted to. And if the whole z7ip file format puts you off with the space you save you can make a self extracting file for Windows only so called self called "dumb" users and still often save space.


My attitude? But my argument is completely OS agnostic, I don't believe I have argued pro or against any particular OS or software ideology. To the best of my knowledge, all dominant operating systems (Windows, Linux and MacOS) have integrated ZIP support. Here's the quote from Wikipedia that supports that:

Integrated is all a point of view. Linux and Mac OS don't so much have integrated support in the os as they have libraries and tools that "can" be and often but not always "are" installed by default. Form the Linux distro side 7-zip is basically just as integrated in many cases. Similar can be said for Mac OSX being largely a unix derivative with a new presentation layer sitting atop. So by saying that we should just use ZIP because it is the lowest common denominator. Means that we should just use ZIP because it is all Microsoft supports. (everyone else supports more) Hence how this whole thing quickly becomes Microsoft centric.

You're right, integrated zip support in XP doesn't offer much flexibility in terms of compression. However, for decompression, it's quite adequate, which is my main concern: being able to read and open archives available on the Internet.

Well you are never going to get everyone to stick to just one thing. English as a language is good enough so why doesn't everyone use it? Not using it only makes it harder for the majority of the world to interoperate with them. Also by this decree you put forth you create a chicken and the egg conundrum that while making things uniform if sucsessfull would stop evolution and progress almost all together. Because no matter what new and wonderfull stuff comes out we would always have to wait for MS to implement it. And they are notoriously fashionably late to every party and market. Hence we are back to MS.


I disagree. At the time when it was introduced (1999) ASF brought to the table capabilities that other media formats didn't have: variable framerate, multiple streams, markers (chapters), network streaming, integrated captions, rich metadata, etc. Anyway, that's a different topic - this one is about file compression.

You might check on Quicktime and Real. Even though they were less used I think they offered most of those features before anyhow. However I could be wrong. But I don't think so. I'll see what I can dig up. Also remember that while wikipedia is nice is is not always accurate. There has been alot of discussion elsewhere on this fact.

**EDIT**
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicktime
Wikipedia apparently contradicts itself again. According to this page Quicktime supported multiple streams, markers, network streaming, integrated captions, ritch metadata, etc by 1992 or 1995. A full 5+ years before Microsoft innovated ASF. And I am also rather sure that even though wikipedia does not mention it quicktime has long supported VFR. Well before Microsoft invented it. Ironically even AVI technically supports multiple tracks, meta data, etc, and it definatly pre dates ASF/WMV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealNetworks
Real media has long supported multiple streams yadda yadda yadda. A conservative date gleaned from wikipedia again indicates 1998 almost a full year before Microsoft innovated.

Microsoft was about the last major player to the party for all the features mentioned. Even if they were much more sucessfull due to monopoly leveraging via bundling.

But you can play WMV and WMA with any player, be it WMP, MPC, Zoom or whatever, so the comparison isn't on the level.

I would not be so sure. "SOME" WMV and WMA are playable do to file stream analysis and perhaps some reverse engineering. Also this is sometimes possible by actually using Microsoft's own binary libraries sometimes "illegally" outside of Windows. The latter option "only" works on X86 machines and is not universal. So at best you may be able to play some ASF and WMV content under Linux. But don't count on it. Because no matter how good it works it is still a second class citizen do to exclusionary paractices by Microsoft. My dads computer runs Centos Linux and I have beefed it up with Mplayer, VLC, etc. But I regularly get emails and messages telling me about sites with video that don't play. 9 times out of 10 it is WMV files. There is rather good 3rd party quicktime support. Real plays with Linux. Microsoft says you are not us so screw you. So don't be so sure. I run 2 Linux PCs of my own with a similar setup to my dads. And most of my video issues are WMV related. WMV is a huge pain. Same for WMA.

[Sirber]

What can I say more than :goodpost: :D

[Neo Neko]

I think Zambelli has a legimate point so cut him some slack. He brings up the unnecessity of yet another compression format,

Then why do we have Mac OS or Linux? We have Windows after all. Why do we have Windows? We had Dos and Dos Shell after all. You think those are legitimate points as well? Just asking. Cause they are all rather analogus.

and others immediately bring up FOSS vs Microsoft and use that against him, which isn't fair IMO,

Life isn't fair. But it is a fact that when it comes to Microsoft's competition most of those percieved as having a modicom of sucess are often OSS. It is largely an insepperable relationship. You can't discuss one without the other anymore in this context. So is this a MS verses OSS thing or an MS vs Competition thing. If you are a Microsoft guy it is always an OSS vs MS thing. If you are an OSS guy it is often a Microsoft versus competition thing. The ODF/MS-XML drama is a clear example of this. Microsoft says that ODF is in some way incompatible with them and they can't implement it because of it's license. The ODF guys then look over and laugh at the MS guys blowing sunshine while spitting into the wind. There is no such license incompatibilities etc. Microsoft is just spinning as hard as they can trying to stop the competition. :p

because he wasn't trolling about the merits of proprietary software / formats in his initial post at all.

Such a biased, closed minded, seemingly intolerant, and so called "rant" is by default almost always a troll of some sort. In my view Rant = troll most times. Especially being the basis for a discussion. It is one thing as an asside. But as a meat and potatoes argument. Well it is just asking for it.

While it doesn't hurt to have yet another compression format, I put everything in ZIPs just for compatibility's sake. In most cases a few percent reduction doesn't matter much. I mostly use ZIP for the sake of bundling a large number of files together.

Last I remember tar worked just fine for that as well. In fact it predates ZIP and works just as well while being even more compatible. Yay for archaeic thechnology!


As a (de)compression application 7-zip is magnificent and after discovering it I've replaced WinRar with it everywhere. I still keep WinRar for dealing with those occasional pesky ACEs.

iZarc handles ace, rar, 7z,, lzh, etc. Nice complement and even replacement for all those utilities including 7-zip! Choice is NEVER a bad thing.

[LightningFire]

Unfortunately I have not a found a 7zip plugin for Total commander yet.
I really don't like any shell integrating programs, extending menus until they become scrollable or dual-column. When each of this programs tries to promote its own "native" format for which often the competition initially does not have the option of decoding, wastes my time.

Until a plugin for my favourite file manager comes around, I will hesitate before downloading a 7zip file.
I think many people might see it that way too (replace file manager with os or anything, it still counts).
If you're point of compression is distribution (of a package as a single file) 7zip might not cut it yet.

I think I'll give iZarc a look, I never heard of it until now.

[zambelli]

Life isn't fair. But it is a fact that when it comes to Microsoft's competition most of those percieved as having a modicom of sucess are often OSS. It is largely an insepperable relationship. You can't discuss one without the other anymore in this context. So is this a MS verses OSS thing or an MS vs Competition thing. If you are a Microsoft guy it is always an OSS vs MS thing. If you are an OSS guy it is often a Microsoft versus competition thing.
Well, have fun discussing it with yourself because I'm not going to waste my time on a MS vs OSS discussion that I never brought up in the first place. The XP native support for ZIP was mentioned as merely an added perk of using a well known and supported format such as ZIP (which it was long before MS ever added support to XP), but you had to be hawkish and turn that into some sort of proof of corporate evil and proceed to throw punches.

Such a biased, closed minded, seemingly intolerant, and so called "rant" is by default almost always a troll of some sort. In my view Rant = troll most times. Especially being the basis for a discussion.
I'll spell it out for you again: I don't like 7-Zip because I find it unnecessary in this time and age and consequently a hassle for the end user. I had no idea that disliking a file format can make me biased, closed minded, intolerant, a troll, an OSS hater and a brainwashed corporate lackey - all at once.

I'll end my participation in this thread by quoting the one person who actually has experience running a large website and distributing software:
...ZIP is a format that people even without the OS integration know.. and it's the only format most people know.
Being responsible for a high traffic website, I also see the traffic angle. But moving my downloads to 7z format is simply no option.. I don't need 100 emails per day asking what to do with 7z files.. in the end that would be much more of a hassle than a few GB traffic.
That's the reality for you. Now you can talk software politics all you want.

[CruNcher]

With Windows XP we even got native OS support for ZIP archives, leading the way to simple and painless dealing with most compressed files.


Painless you kidding the integration is bad very bad the first thing after i install windows is to download winrar and install it and never use that internal integration again and personaly what Doom9 says might be true for now but people can learn and in IT should learn on daylie basis.
And as people that come on Doom9 read a tutorial about DVD backuping they also could read a tutorial about how to use 7-Zip to get the tools from the site (and believe me they will read it, because they want something) and soon everyone would knew it and use it it's just a question of how many people force others to use it to get something they wan't (exactly the same strategy Microsoft does allways use) it's nothing more.

[snn47]

The only benefit for zip-support in XP is that it allows you to search also throught zipped folders/files, which is something I havn't found in Totalcommander.

Another bonus for 7zip as programm is that it still provides a command line control with all the benefits that come with the archaic command line. :devil:

[Nematocyst]

The only benefit for zip-support in XP is that it allows you to search also throught zipped folders/files, which is something I havn't found in Totalcommander.

Heh. Not that I have any problem with people liking that aspect of integration, but it's funny that is what I hate most about XP's zip support. It irks me to no end that XP takes insane amounts of time searching through archive after archive for what should have been a 10 second search. Since there's no checkbox "Exclude archives in searches." or something, I have disable XP's builtin zip support.

As for the rest of the thread which has gotten overly snippy, I'll just say I generally agree with zambelli and I usually talk myself out of any software archived with RAR. I haven't seen enough .7z files to really form an opinion on that one, but I suppose I'd do my best to avoid them as well.

[shevegen]

"What difference does it make if pretty much every OS already has native support for ZIP? Are you personally paying a fee to PKWare?"
How about older Windows OS?
And you focus on the aspect of fee, but you do know that Open Source allows you to study the source and modify it under certain terms, so this is an advantage that Closed Source specs dont give you. If you dont mind, thats fine, noone forces YOU to use this one, so why do YOU want to force others into avoiding it?

[snn47]

@Nematocyst
I admitt it's a pain that XP doesn't provide a de-/select button for packed files (zip and cab) and having to remove it is also not a option.

Thats why I still use W2k SP4 even so my notebooks came with XP. The only other tool that I could find that allow to search through packed files/folders was the file search utility from speed commander, which is unfortunately slower then XP.

@all
I don't want to sound like 7zip-prg is the best, but it matured over the past years and is still improving constantly. I used Powerarchiver before 7zip when it was still freeware and just have Winzip at the office.

Under zip the 7zip-prg is more efficient then other programms when you still want zip-files. After packing you can verify the integrety of a packed file within seconds, which took in Winzip much longer.

To support the argument said before of saving traffic, when I archived the 1GB folder with webdownload in 7zip format it was just about 0,25GB small. No other format/prg did achieve this much at the time.

[Caroliano]

Note that he didn't touch in the bandwidth aspect....

[LightningFire]

The only benefit for zip-support in XP is that it allows you to search also throught zipped folders/files, which is something I havn't found in Totalcommander.


When you do commands->search, in the dialog there is the option/checkbox to search archives (except UC2).

So no benefit at all for zip support in XP ;).

[Neo Neko]

Well, have fun discussing it with yourself because I'm not going to waste my time on a MS vs OSS discussion that I never brought up in the first place.

Yep you are an MS guy. :p

The XP native support for ZIP was mentioned as merely an added perk of using a well known and supported format such as ZIP (which it was long before MS ever added support to XP), but you had to be hawkish and turn that into some sort of proof of corporate evil and proceed to throw punches.

Not necessarily. You extoll the compatability of Zip. Fine. Good. But you rant on 7-zip. An open source format. While completely for the most part ignoring RAR, ACE, or LZH which using words you have used bring nothing new to the table so to speak. Not necessarily an equal opportunity ranter. Maybe I am reading an anti OSS bias where there is none. But you have to admit it could look like there was. What did 7-zip do to you to make you so mad? Why not mention any of them. Or why mention any other format in general. Wouldn't your argument have been just as effective if all you talked about was ZIP and not ZIP?

I'll spell it out for you again: I don't like 7-Zip because I find it unnecessary in this time and age and consequently a hassle for the end user.

That is hardly a reasong for anything. And has no real factual basis or backing. You like ZIP because your environment of choice really only supports it. We got that. Understand that many of us don't care for ZIP because we find it unnecessary in this time and age and consequently a large waster of still valuable space for the end user. Not that we rant about why people are still using archaeic compression methods. Because even we use them from time to time.

I had no idea that disliking a file format can make me biased, closed minded, intolerant, a troll, an OSS hater and a brainwashed corporate lackey - all at once.

You may or may not be all that. But understand that is how you are coming off.

I'll end my participation in this thread by quoting the one person who actually has experience running a large website and distributing software:

What you think I have never run my own web sites or distributed software? News flash. I have run and worked on several sites distributing lots of different software. I have even coded my own software and my own sites for a long time. Hell I have even hosted sites etc. I am quite familliar with the whole affair.

That's the reality for you. Now you can talk software politics all you want.

Doom9 does not use ZIP because it is the best thing to use or the only right thing to use. He uses it because it is just one less thing for people to write in asking about without actually trying to find out on their own. He does not have or want to spend time answering such basic questions repeatedly. I on the other hand don't mind as much which is why I am still messing with you. :devil: ZIP is adequate. And Doom9 no longer has much in the way of bandwidth issues. Though this may scare you. There was a time when there were bandwidth issues and alternatives other than ZIP were explored.

And in the end I never said there was anything wrong with ZIP. I simply took exception to your seemingly quite biased and somewhat pointless rant. Why do we need another format? Simply because we do. If we called it a ZIP file it would make ZIP a less reliable etc choice. Simply because most ZIP programs would not understand the compression algorythms used in the ZIP container. Same thing for using it in RAR. Simply put 7-zip is different from all of them and not a part of any of them. Therefore it needs it's own format that will accomodate, expand, and grow as it does. And if your integrated environment can't handle it yet that is whay they write these nice external aplications for you to install and use. You are not out anything if we all use what we want. ZIP is usefull like latin is. A dead language/format that isn't really going to unexpectedly or drastically change. you can rely on it in times of need. But that doesn not mean you always have to use it or that everyone else should either.

Politics are not required. Just common sense. People are different all over. And I love that. I embrace that. And I don't scold them for just being different. ;)

[Sirber]

isn't this "ZIP vs the rest" the same as "Windows vs the rest" and "divx vs the rest"?

[*.mp4 guy]

I'm not going to tuch the rest of this thread, but 7zip extracts all the archive formats I've ever run into very quickly and easily (one click easy) and as someone who was stuck with dialup for 2 1/2 years I can easily say that it would have been great if 7zip was around then.

[stax76]

Why is it that people are scared by new and great technology? Give it some time and people eventually will get over it. In the beginning people were against .NET as hell and by now some years later most of 'em happily running it.

[Sirber]

the only .NET I'm forced to use doesn't work: ATI Catalyst. I need a fresh reboot or the GUI don't start. :devil:

[charleski]

Ok, from looking at many of the replies in this thread, I suspect there are several people here who have the luxury of NOT having to move around various locations and deal with computers that are managed by BOfH control-freaks (either pimply-faced virgins or embittered middle-aged losers).

If, like me, you do have to work with computers that are administered by people whose knowledge of their systems doesn't extend that far beyond ticking all the 'Deny' boxes they can see in Group Policy, you'll realise that XP's native support for zip files is a godsend, especially if you left your thumbdrive with its password cracker and rootkit at home (heh).

7-zip may indeed be pretty good, but after a decade of ARC, ARJ, UHA and other pretenders it needs to work hard to prove itself. As far as my home system goes, I use WinRAR 3.4 and see no reason to move to anything else.

[john3voltas]

In the beginning people were against .NET as hell and by now some years later most of 'em happily running it.
Believe me, you don't wanna go that way...
I am one of those millions of people that are forced to use .NET.
I see that for the programmer's point of view it is a whole lot easier this way but it isn't for the average user guy.
I would be glad to kick both .NET and J2SE from my PC but it just ain't possible with so many tools (even OSS ones) making use of those frameworks.
If you ask me, just another attempt from M$ to keep all the eggs in the same (their!) basket...
Cheers

[zambelli]

I promised myself I wouldn't touch this thread anymore, but you're just being stubborn beyond reason. This is the last time I post, and then I'm done, for real.
Yep you are an MS guy. :p
You can put as many smiley faces as you like at the end of that statement, but it's sad that this has been the driving force of your argument. How can I spell it out for you that my gripe with 7-Zip has nothing to do with XP, Linux, Microsoft, OSS, or any other unrelated thing that you have somehow managed to drag into this thread? If your friend comes to you and says, "I'm totally for the death penalty", do you immediately come back with "Yep, you're a Republican. You hate freedom."? That's how this thread feels to me: I'm stating my opinion on something, and you're dragging in software politics and telling me what my party allegiance is. Do you understand why I refuse to have any part in that?

You extoll the compatability of Zip. Fine. Good. But you rant on 7-zip. An open source format. While completely for the most part ignoring RAR, ACE, or LZH which using words you have used bring nothing new to the table so to speak. Not necessarily an equal opportunity ranter. Maybe I am reading an anti OSS bias where there is none.
Finally you get something right: yes, you're reading an anti-OSS bias where there is none! If you had bothered to read the entire thread, you would've seen me talk about the historical context of other file compression solutions. In the late 80s and early 90s the file compression scene was very competetive and it made perfect sense given the limited disk space and low bandwidth we were dealing with at the time. I've been using PCs for over 15 years and I remember very vividly the file format jungle that was ZIP, TAR, ARJ, LHA, LZH, ACE, ARC, ZOO, UC2, RAR and too many others which I can't even remember anymore. Downloading files from BBS'es and sharing anything with friends was a major PITA because you never knew which crazy new compressed format you were gonna get. ZIP was invented in 1989. RAR arrived in 1992. LZH dates back to the Amiga days. And ACE... late or mid 90s, I think, but don't have an original ACE tool at hand to confirm the precise copyright date.
Finally, by the start of this decade the jungle finally quiets down, digital evolution weeds out the weaklings and the numbers of compressed file formats essentially dwindles down to a strong few, the most prevalent being ZIP and RAR. So far, so true, right?

And THEN in 2002 (!!!), 7-Zip shows up, and on top of that takes several years to actually gain any kind of footing (and I'm sure someone will take the time to dispute this because they've been living in a commune for the last 3 years dealing exclusively with 7-Zip files and thus feel like the rest of the world surely must be doing the same thing). A little bit late to the party, don't you think? The main reason we compress files these days is for easy distribution and download, particularly in multimedia where compressability is fairly low. More efficient compression is nice, but in my book it's simply not worth the hassle at this point. So it's not OSS vs Microsoft or any other crap that you and others have been implying. To me this is a simple matter of compatibility, common (de facto) standard and ease of use.

Introducing a new compressed file format in 2002 to me is analogous to now introducing an alternative to Binhex, UUE and Base64 encoding for binaries in email. "Hooray, the new algorithm produces 25% smaller email attachments! But oh wait, no email client supports it and your friends can't open your wonderfully small attachments without first installing a special plugin. :(" A great idea, no doubt, but about 10 years too late.

That is hardly a reasong for anything.
Hassle for the end user is not a good reason? I've no idea what you do for a living, but if it's software development, your customers are in deep trouble.

You like ZIP because your environment of choice really only supports it. We got that. Understand that many of us don't care for ZIP because we find it unnecessary in this time and age and consequently a large waster of still valuable space for the end user.
I like ZIP because it's the de facto standard for compressed files on the Internet! Can't you at least admit that's a fact?
People are asserting that I'm somehow anti-innovation, but that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying there's a time and place for all innovation and in the case of file compression that time was in the previous decade, the battle was fought, decided, let's move on. There are plenty of technologies both in the computer world and the non-computer world that you could update and innovate, but for many of them innovation is not necessary because they've been standardized to the point where any changes would outweigh the benefit of improvement. Do you ever wonder why the width of railroad tracks hasn't changed in over a century? Do you think it's because railroad engineers hate innovation and freedom of ideas?

ZIP is usefull like latin is. A dead language/format that isn't really going to unexpectedly or drastically change. you can rely on it in times of need.
You fall back on Latin often? Is this before or after you have exhausted your knowledge of Aramaic, Church Slavonic and Norse? :D

Are you really too blind to see that ZIP is a de facto standard in file compression? It's not even remotely analogous to a dead language. A far better analogy would be English or Spanish. In a recent post you said "English as a language is good enough so why doesn't everyone use it? Not using it only makes it harder for the majority of the world to interoperate with them." Well, the fact of the matter is that in most global communications, English already IS the de facto standard. What language is primarily used at the United Nations? What language is included in nearly every technical manual in existence? I don't think that English should be forced upon anybody or that any nation should be forced to replace their native language with English. However, if you're trying to reach the maximum number of people in the world for whatever reason, don't you think that it makes the most sense to use English? Obviously asking everyone to speak Basque or Macedonian at a global summit doesn't make sense if your goal is easy communication, does it? Along those lines, I think using ZIP for software distribution makes most sense because everyone's familiar with it and can read it. Using 7-Zip, on the other hand, feels more like writing a technical manual only in Esperanto. Sure, it's simpler, unaligned, unbiased and modern, but you've just lost a bunch of customers because they don't want to bother with a translator. You have to ask yourself: what's your goal?

You may or may not be all that. But understand that is how you are coming off.
Well, if this post doesn't clarify where I stand, there's really nothing more I can say to make you guys see my point of view. I'm not asking you to agree, but please don't attach meaning to my words that's not there and imply topics that I never started.

[GrofLuigi]

Unfortunately I have not a found a 7zip plugin for Total commander yet.
You mean something like this (http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/7zip_plugin.html)? ;)

Or maybe it doesn't work for you? I must admit that I haven't tested it yet.

GL

[foxyshadis]

Neo, there was never any indication that he cared whether it was open source or not, all that mattered was that it was relatively new, imperfectly supported, and often used frivilously (which he called "unnecessary"), in which case it may as well have been a rant about lossless audio formats, blogs, video containers, flash movies, Java, premium coffee, or anything else that someone could make an opinionated, somewhat unfounded rant on.

[Sirber]

@zambelli @neo keo

so to conclude this once and for all:

ZIP is the most used compressor while the elite use 7zip.

everyone happy? :p

[dragongodz]

7-Zip shows up, and on top of that takes several years to actually gain any kind of footing
hmm so when zip or any other new archiver compression appeared it was instantly used by everyone ? of course not. you can pass the same result on to lots of other software, was xvid when first released suddenly taken up by every man and dog ? no, etc etc etc. so that statement means nothing.

The main reason we compress files these days is for easy distribution and download, particularly in multimedia where compressability is fairly low. More efficient compression is nice, but in my book it's simply not worth the hassle at this point.
this seems to be what you are not getting. yes it may not be worth your time and effort but it certainly is for others. you use a quote from doom9 earlier about why he uses zip. try reading all of this thread
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=63800
i wont try and speak for doom9 but i feel confident that most people running sites etc with high amounts of downloads would love if the content was 25% or more smaller in physical size without losing any actual content. especially any that have to pay for the amount downloaded or for any excess over a certain amount.
and as has already been stated by others there is more than just doom9 on here that has had experience with software distribution etc. doom9 chose to use zip so he didnt get hassles from people asking about other formats ,however others would rather put a f.a.q. or whatever and use better compression. both are as valid as each other for their own reasons.

[Doobie]

7z has my support. I haven't experienced any hassle with files that use 7z. 7z has enough benefits over both rar and zip to justify its use. 7z is free/open and compresses slightly better than rar and significantly better than zip.

If you want something to rant about, how about so many programs trying to do so many things. For example, I have a dozen programs on my computer that can burn CDs, even though I have no need for most of them to burn CDs. I even hear that DivxNetworks is throwing CD burning into their video player. If the Divx player can't burn CDs better than Nero, then what's the point?

In 20 years, it will be time to move beyond 7z. And, so what if we have 1Gbs internet connections and multi-terabyte hard drives.

[foxyshadis]

I bet the majority of doom9's bandwidth costs come from pageviews and the forums anyway, particularly the PNG snapshots. He already uses gzip on the pages, to mitigate it.

7zip's best place for online file distribution is in creating highly compressed installers. If it's in an exe wrapper no one needs to care how it got there, which is why installers still use all kinds of exotic compression formats. (Although NEAD, which Adobe and HP use, has symmetrical decompression time and thus has to be one of the more useless compressors out there.)

[Sirber]

7zip uses LZMA. You can use it in NSIS too and get kick ass small installers :D

[Caroliano]

@charleski: The only places I go and is this way, they use Win98, so not a big deal for me. :rolleyes:
And most of the 7z compressed things is software, that you can't install there anyway. But I see your point.

Along those lines, I think using ZIP for software distribution makes most sense because everyone's familiar with it and can read it. Using 7-Zip, on the other hand, feels more like writing a technical manual only in Esperanto.
That was funny. Good analogy anyway. The conclusion is that Esperanto rulez, isn't? :p

I never saw it as an MS vs OSS discussion until some OSS people start caling he a MS guy. He already give all his arguments and we all our arguments. This was simple an rant, so no necessity to extend more in my opinion.

Note that he didn't touch in the bandwidth aspect AGAIN...

[mpucoder]

Interesting thread on pros and cons of leading edge technology, so let me weigh in as a content provider. The most important thing to websites is accessability, not bandwidth. To that end I prefer to use zip for distribution, as stated many times above, everyone by now is familiar with it. rar and tg still have a "Linux only" stigma, and 7zip is too new for most people. The object is to make the download as easy as possible for as many people as possible. Bandwidth was an argument 2 or 3 years ago, when anything over 10GB/month was a premium costing hundreds of dollars and T1 speeds were also expensive. But today $40/month gets you the equivalent of a T1 connection via DSL with no bandwidth limit. Provide your own server, register a domain, find some free dns slaves, and you're in business.
Btw, the same argument is applied at my site towards css and javascript. I have nothing against the technology, but avoiding it ensures greater accessability.

[stax76]

Believe me, you don't wanna go that way...
I am one of those millions of people that are forced to use .NET.
I see that for the programmer's point of view it is a whole lot easier this way but it isn't for the average user guy.
I would be glad to kick both .NET and J2SE from my PC but it just ain't possible with so many tools (even OSS ones) making use of those frameworks.
If you ask me, just another attempt from M$ to keep all the eggs in the same (their!) basket...


I'm not sure if you really see the big picture, it's all about making progress and not about conspiracy.

[Doom9]

Here's a little experiment I've performed looking at the stats.
The two top traffic tools are DVD Decrypter and DVDShrink with 17532 and 9193 downloads respectively.

DVDDecrypter is distributed as exe by request of the author, DVDShrink is zipped.

Size deltas with 7zip at Maximum compression

DVD Decrypter: 15 KB
DVDShrink: -9 KB (that's right, the zipped one is smaller)

Total traffic difference: 262'290 - 82'737 = 179'553 KB or 175 MB.

If I were to ZIP DVD Decrypter, the size delta is only 6KB.

Number three on the traffic list is AviSynth, distributed as an exe. Zipped, I gain 2 KB, compressed with 7zip adds 40KB. Number of downloads: 1292

Number four on the traffic list is XviD 1.03, distributed as executable. Once again, it gets bigger compressed with both ZIP and 7zip, and the zipped output is 3 KB smaller than the 7zip. Number of downloads: 2696

Number 5 is SmartRipper. Same size compressed with rar or 7zip. Number of downloads 3902

Number 6: ImgTools Classic, currently zipped. Size gain, 25KB. Number of downloads: 2145

Number 7: Nandub, currently rared. Size gain: 120KB. Now that's a number. Number of downloads: 1885

Number 8: ImgBurn, currently being distributed as exe, requested by the author. Size gain with ZIP: 21 KB, 7zip: 17KB. Number of downloads: 1849

Number 9: Ifoedit, currently zipped. Size gain by using 7zip: 126KB. Number of downloads: 2622

In total, that's a plus of 562'294 KB for 7zip, coming mostly from two tools in the top 10 list.

But, the traffic can be further reduced by picking the appropriate compression tool, or keeping the whole thing uncompressed in the first place. And now you have to weigh 550MB of traffic (which costs essentially nothing) versus the hassle of telling all those downloaders what 7zip is.

By the way, number 10, or actually it's number 3, is right.html, your entry page with the news. That one is being gzipped on the fly and I'm sure nobody would come my way if people had to download it and uncompress with 7zip to read the news ;)

[mpucoder]

By the way, number 10, or actually it's number 3, is right.html, your entry page with the news. That one is being gzipped on the fly
Only if the browser supports gzip (the request header lists supported mime types) - if only a similar mechanism were available for downloads webmasters could use new tools without fear of backlash.
But Doom9's stats also indicate that 7zip is not always the best compressor.

[celtic_druid]

No compressors work well for compressed installers or packed exe's. If the installer uses no compression or you have non packed exe's 7-zip will beat zip probably every time.

DVD Decrypter I think uses NSI, probably with LZMA. Take my XviD compiles. The installer is just an EXE, no point packing it since it uses LZMA already. The standalone dll/ax's I pack with 7-zip since it give smaller filesizes than zip or rar. People who want simple will download the installer anyway I guess.

Looking at the current news we have yamb. 998 as a zip, 858 as 7z. I would imagine that downloads in the news experience a spike, so that could add up to quite a bit. 815kb when you use 7-zip after first unpacking mediainfo.dll.

866kb with 7-zip if you pack yamb, 876 with winzip. So it looks like zip handles UPX'ed stuff better than 7z. By that I mean 998 vs 876. Obviously at 866 7zip still wins.

[john3voltas]

I'm not sure if you really see the big picture, it's all about making progress and not about conspiracy.
Oh, believe me that I can see the real picture and IMHO .net is certainly not the way to progress.
But that's just my honest oppinion ;).
And I may be wrong about M$ and "the eggs and the basket" but that's just because they do these things very often.
Now, you go check all the big projects out there that need .net and check their forums or mailing lists.
For instance nLite is one of those cases ;).
The author was "forced" to make available a set of DLLs that allow people to use nLite without .net.
There are thousands of potential users that will never use such projects unless .net framework is not needed.
And I can't critisize them for that...
I'll give you one word: bloated.
Now, I do acknowledge that .net is much easier/faster from the programmer's point of view! ;)
Cheers

[john3voltas]

No compressors work well for compressed installers or packed exe's. If the installer uses no compression or you have non packed exe's 7-zip will beat zip probably every time.
Exactly what experience tells me! :)

[zambelli]

Note that he didn't touch in the bandwidth aspect AGAIN...
Sorry for missing it twice, I got caught up in the other discussion. :)
I think the bandwidth argument is a valid one theoretically, but I simply didn't have any real-world numbers to back it or knock it either way. I would imagine that it would depend largely on the situation. For a struggling website that can barely pay the bills and stay online - I suppose 7zip would be a true blessing. But for websites that have no trouble paying the extra few bucks for the zip/rar bandwidth overhead, I imagine it'd just be a hassle.
The numbers Doom9 posted speak for themselves on that matter.

[dragongodz]

The numbers Doom9 posted speak for themselves on that matter.
some more quick numbers.
zip = best
rar = best + solid archiving
7zip = ultra + solid archiving

FFMpeg source code cvs checkout - 9065k
zip = 2194k
rar = 1473k
7zip = 1413k

5 pdf's - 2282k
zip = 2103k
rar = 1783k
7zip = 1776k

66 jpg's - 4510k
zip = 4382k
rar = 4317k
7zip = 4137k

so there actually can be quite substantial savings using even rar over zip and 7zip gains more again. it all depends on what you are compressing.

as you also basically said it(and i also tried to point out earlier) whether the savings in bandwidth these could potentially bring is worth telling people how to handle these different compressions or not is up to those running the sites depending on their situation. for some it would be worth it and for other not. its a big world out there with different pricing schemes from different isp's etc.

[rkr1958]

Thanks for the discussion on 7zip. I never knew it existed. I just downloaded and installed it. It looks greats. I think I've found a replacement for WinZip. I love Open Source Software.

[bratao]

I stay with winrar, few people use 7zip, and the speed and memory used in 7zip are a monster with you compare with winrar, only to save 50k, ahrgg..

[Caroliano]

If the person has suport for winrar so probabily it has suport for 7z also. This was already discussed.

But I agree that the memory usage for the higest compression is realy high. Use rar or less compresion with 7z in that case....

[Sirber]

Seems 7z is not the winner anymore...

http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=4&pgno=11

[Caroliano]

This comparison was more about speed. They used the fastest preset in all the data compressors. 7z was never a contender for this type of test, we were talking about compression rate.

[dragongodz]

Seems 7z is not the winner anymore...
This comparison was more about speed. They used the fastest preset in all the data compressors. 7z was never a contender for this type of test, we were talking about compression rate.
actually that test is good for 1 thing, it shows how slow the greater compression can be. its hardly an extensive test though being just 1 archive. notice i tested multiple types in that mini test i did because you get different results/savings depending on the source. so you need to look at all the pages not just the end one.

so let me quote myself from page 1.
actually i saw some tests done awhile ago showing other compression algorythms that actually did much better. they however would take many hours to compress what zip, rar or 7zip would do in minutes. so its a great new compression at a useable speed.
and the tests i saw ages ago actually had a lot of other more esoteric compressions aswell which compressed extremely well but as i said were not usable in a real world situation because of their snail pace.

[foxyshadis]

The article's methodology and presentation lean too heavily on lame hardware review strategies (throw mindnumbing graphs at everything, showing off how dumb it was to have outliers like winrk, sqeez, and sbc included in a speed-contest), but they do make a good point in a bad way: The vest majority of people care more about compression speed than size, except in dire circumstances, and 7-zip needs to meet and exceed the efficiency of rar to unseat it.

I just don't even understand why someone would throw together something like that when a far more comprehensive resultset exists at MaximumCompression.com. (The overall speed (http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_mf3.php)/size (http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_mf.php)/efficiency (http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_mf2.php) rankings.)

I hope maxcomp updates with winrk3 soon because it's so much faster in the fastest (ROLZ2) modes. =D

[dragongodz]

foxyshadis - actually the single file tests show interesting results aswell. the only problem is times were not given for them nor is the multiple of single types etc.
http://www.maximumcompression.com/index.html

7-zip needs to meet and exceed the efficiency of rar to unseat it.
and it does under some circumstances. look at the mini tests i did or even the single file tests in that link. it didnt with that 1 multiple file types test they did of course but that doesnt mean that will always be the case. also with winrar still being updated aswell i would expect both to get better with time so both are good.

another thing 7zip has which is not often mentioned is different compression alogorithms. yes the default is LZMA but it also has BZip2 and PPMd to choose from when they may be of more use. :)

[Neo Neko]

Seems 7z is not the winner anymore...

http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=4&pgno=11

Yeah I just finished reading that. Interesting though not thurrough. Had not seen squeez or SBC that I can remember before. 7-zip ran about the middle of the pack which is not bad. It is still my preffered compressor ATM. Though I think I will look into some of the others.

I wonder if Microsoft actually does expose some sort of API for their compressed folder interface. I have not heard anything about it. But if they did it would be nice if more people knew. Even if Microsoft would not bundle other decompressors it would make it possible for other people to add 3rd party support for other formats. Then I suspect we might see a few less people with pointless rants. ;) Save for the ones that would complain that they don't come bundled and have to be downloaded and installed. :p IIRC many file managers etc under Linux/BSD do or are in the process of.

[foxyshadis]

They do, zipfolders works as a complex but fairly standard shell extension. (I think it can work on 2k, too.) Some software, like zipmagic, extends the integration to multiple formats and OSes. I don't know the details, though. I've seen talk of one being created for 7-zip for years, but nothing's shown up yet.

Stuffit made big talk about being on the verge of having folder, image viewer, and browser plugins ready to go when they released stuffit 9 with jpeg compression... but nothing ever showed up, and I'm glad I didn't pay for it then. Allume is the graveyard of dead software, I'm shocked they managed that one innovation.

[Doobie]

The best argument againt 7z is that there are tighter compressors around. If you need top speed or maximum compatibility, use zip. If you want balance, use rar. If you want size above all???

At one time, WinAce seemed to enjoy the popularity that 7z now gets. But, WinAce, WinRK, Stuffit, etc. aren't free and open, even if they're tighter than 7z. Are they?

BTW, please, people, stop using Divx/Xvid, MPEG4 AVC, RM, and other codecs that lack native supported in Windows. It's too much hassle have to load new codecs on clean installs just to support this soup of standards. Stick with mpeg1, it's faster and more compatible. :p

[eidenk]

1860 files weighing a total of 101 MB compressed to just 255 KB (you read well, 255 kilobytes from 101 megabytes) with 7-Zip in solid archive mode. And a self extracting archive weighs only 322 KB.

Sort of extreme compression ratio, isn't it ?

Of couse such a ratio is possible only if all the files are very similar to each other. In this case, all the files are Filter Factory 8bf Photoshop compatible plugins.

As for zip folders, it also exist in Windows Millenium but it's quite crap IMO as you can't create an archive with it AFAIK. Some goes for MS cab folder (or is it called cab view ?) shell extension which is basically the same as zip folder but for MS cab archives and is available for free from MS since the days of Win 95 I think.

There is one soft called Iceows that I have tried and that mimics the MS zip and cab folder behaviour with added filetypes support and extra functionality. It did not remain on my system though.

A very good and powerfull free archiver is IzArc. I use it for opening archives but don't use it's shell extension anymore since 7-Zip shellex supports extracting Lzh archives.

If you download something compressed from Japan, it's going to be in the lzh format most of the time I have noticed, not zip, 7z or rar.

[Atamido]

Wait... You use MS backup? :)Ah, obviously never touched a server. Anything that backs up the computer's system state while it is running hooks into this service. Unless you have particular needs, MSBackup is the easiest to use, and will not cost you thousands of dollars.

A couple of quick points I want to make as the thread seems pretty jumbled.


7z produces the smallest .Zip files. So any knowledgable person will have it installed anyway, even if they rarely encounter a .7z file.
If you need to either transfer a large file over a slow connection, or fit a large file into a smaller space, this still makes a lot of sense. Not all connections nor storage spaces are infinite.
There are different compression rates. If I need something compressed quickly, then I will use the faster setting. I often don't need the file right away and can set it to compress at the maximum settings and come back to it tomorrow. There are also a host of other options I can customize for a specific need.
LZMA, which 7z can use, is very efficient at decompressing. So even if it spends 8 hours compressing, it is very fast for whoever needs to decompress it.
You can create a self extracting .7z file very easily, and unless your compressed file is less than 100KB, it will still be smaller than a .Zip.
While the average user is better off getting a ZIP file, that does not mean that an advanced user wouldn't be better off with a smaller 7z file. I give average mulit-platform users .Zip files. I give average Windows users .7z files that are self extracting. And I give advanced users .7z files. Planning for the specific user ensures I maximize my 384kpbs upload.
7z is probably never going to become the dominant compression format for the average user. But like *nix and many other high end tools, it will always have it's place for people that know what they're doing.

[masken]

The new format incompability-thing is an annoyance that will pass I guess...

What I'd like as a sysadmin is an MSI-package and customization possibilities via MST (such as setting the ZIP-format as the standard format) so that the application can be distributed onto clients in an easy manner.

[snn47]

The new format incompability-thing is an annoyance that will pass I guess...

With a new format you know that you may have problems.

More annoying is the incompatibility with previous versions of a format e.g. when changes were made to RAR not only other programs supporting RAR, but also older versions of WinRAR-program were suddenly incompatible.

[Neo Neko]

Backwards compatability is nice. But it always gets to much attention. When it comes to data formats etc I am more interested in forwards compatability. I very rarely travel to the past. ;) And when it comes to something like 7-zip it is generally rare and quite simple to do an upgrade.

[masken]

To get an application widely used, it must be easily available. Making installation packages for the most common distribution methods (like MSI/MST's, and MS SMS server) is a very important key in getting your application out into companies. If there's no package, noone will install it as it requires manual procedures (normally, users in company/enterprise environments aren't local admins).

the other main issue is compability. You cannot force others onto an application before they've got it installed. Therefore, backwards compability and spreading the application first is the main key to getting it successful.

[Neo Neko]

To get an application widely used, it must be easily available.

7-zip easily avalible. Check.

Making installation packages for the most common distribution methods (like MSI/MST's, and MS SMS server) is a very important key in getting your application out into companies. If there's no package, noone will install it as it requires manual procedures (normally, users in company/enterprise environments aren't local admins).

Not a bad point but not all that good either. For the average home user MSI packages are pointless. And remember things can go both ways. PCs came to many homes because of work. But things like IM etc came to work from the home. And I suspect that when there is an MS dependant business demand for it an MSI can/will be made and well featured. And after reading the SF forum it is in the works. At any rate any admin worth his pay even an MS one could "manually" set up an automated install IIRC. But not the point and click admins. ;)

the other main issue is compability. You cannot force others onto an application before they've got it installed. Therefore, backwards compability and spreading the application first is the main key to getting it successful.

Actually forcing someone on to an aplication before they have it installed as you put it; is a prime way to get people to use new aplications. If we tip-toe around backwards compatability then all your document files should really be ascii text CR/LF terminated and all your archives could only be zip. I only worry about backwards compatability in one of a few cases.

1. The non-backwards compatable software/format in question is not free or freely avalible.

7-zip is not only freely avalible but also highly avalible. ;)

2. The person recieving the non-backwards compatable software/format does not have access to the internet to download and install the required software.

Solution: bundle required software as well. It is really small and perfectly legal to do so. ;)

3. The person in question does not have admin rights to install software.

Solution: Use the 7-zip packages that don't require "formal" installation. Or create a self extracting package with all the space you save over ZIP.

At any rate many times backwards compatability is brought up as a reason not to do something in regards to opensource. The person making the claim is mostly blowing sunshine and spreading FUD. ;) There could indeed be some valid concerns over things like RAR and ACE archives. But not 7z. :)

Business etc will always be cumbersome and slow. Especially those with point and click admins. But there is no reason for the rest of us not to start using it regardless of access or aptitude. Because the only way something gets to be used is by using it. ;)

[masken]

7-zip easily avalible. Check.

Wrong, see below.

Not a bad point but not all that good either. For the average home user MSI packages are pointless. And remember things can go both ways. PCs came to many homes because of work. But things like IM etc came to work from the home. And I suspect that when there is an MS dependant business demand for it an MSI can/will be made and well featured. And after reading the SF forum it is in the works. At any rate any admin worth his pay even an MS one could "manually" set up an automated install IIRC. But not the point and click admins. ;)


Actually forcing someone on to an aplication before they have it installed as you put it; is a prime way to get people to use new aplications. If we tip-toe around backwards compatability then all your document files should really be ascii text CR/LF terminated and all your archives could only be zip. I only worry about backwards compatability in one of a few cases.

There's always wishes about how things should or should not work, and then there's reality. Also, it is a fact that companies large enough to host their own IT often sets up internal standards. I know I do as a consultant. And I know several professionals who refuses to touch anything else than standardized packages, and sets that as a demand on the suppliers. This is a whole industry today. There's companies that does nothing else than package and customize applications for distribution.

Whether one likes or dislikes Microsoft, their OS's are on the vast majority of servers and clients around the world as it is today. And they've got a standard way for installation packages that is natively supported, that works well, and is free to use. No admin likes sitting with regmon & filemon and make custom scripting/installation solutions for every application that the company should support and maintain. It's unbearable. And no company is interested in buying such services externally either, it costs too much. It's just a dead end, simply put.

[Neo Neko]

Wrong, see below.


There's always wishes about how things should or should not work, and then there's reality. Also, it is a fact that companies large enough to host their own IT often sets up internal standards. I know I do as a consultant. And I know several professionals who refuses to touch anything else than standardized packages, and sets that as a demand on the suppliers. This is a whole industry today. There's companies that does nothing else than package and customize applications for distribution.

That does not make me wrong. You are a very business oriented guy. Eazy enough to tell. While what you say does account by and large for the business world of point and click MCSE admins it is not universal even in the business world. To put it another way what you say is not "wrong". Just very narrowly drafted. wakaremas-ka?


Whether one likes or dislikes Microsoft, their OS's are on the vast majority of servers and clients around the world as it is today. And they've got a standard way for installation packages that is natively supported, that works well, and is free to use.

Native? To the more recent versions of Windows perhaps. But in the world of Windows not everyone can afford the newest and shinyest.

Standard? That comes down to your background. If you are a business Windows admin for a company that has enough liquid assets to stay ahead of planned obsolecence then perhaps it is a standard. If not then there are many sometimes confusing alternatives etc. I know it is scarry to think about. But there are big companies out there still running decent install bases of Windows 95! Not to mention 98, ME, etc. ME/2000 is the first version of Windows that even came with Windows Installer! Now what about home users? The situation is even worse for the most part. ;)

Free to use? Perhaps. Are they free to make though? Does MS provide any free tools? I see alot of payware. But keep in mind that for a project such as 7-zip that sort of stuff could be quite prohibative to many avalible resources. Looking over Microsoft.com etc I was not able to turn much up in the way of how to make them.


No admin likes sitting with regmon & filemon and make custom scripting/installation solutions for every application that the company should support and maintain. It's unbearable. And no company is interested in buying such services externally either, it costs too much. It's just a dead end, simply put.

When it comes to Windows based businesses with point and click admins you are probably right. There was never much hope for that bunch anyway. As they are perpetually in an intractable state and often the last to move. Though I know of some Unix shops and admins that are about as bad if not worse. My whole issue was that the business side is only half the argument. And by focussing solely on it you miss alot of other important extenal factors. Yes business when left to itself will tend to stagnate to the motto of "if it isn't severely cripling us don't fix it". That does not make it right. You have to create and roll with the changes. And when companies misread the changes well you end up with alot of friction Like the **AA suing/harrasing/insulting it's customers etc.

Lets just put it down to this. Firefox. The little non-standard standard app that could. It has been years in the making. But it is finally getting traction in the business world. And even if you are not deploying it for businesses you work for you still benefit. Because it got MS off their arse and work on that crufty old Internet Explorer again. Even though it may still be a slim benefit. Still better than business as usual. ;) 7-zip may not get they itself. But a sucessor in spirit almost surely will. Much like the Mozilla->Firefox transition. Mozilla is gone but still with us. ;)

Forging ahead........

[masken]

That does not make me wrong. You are a very business oriented guy. Eazy enough to tell. While what you say does account by and large for the business world of point and click MCSE admins it is not universal even in the business world. To put it another way what you say is not "wrong". Just very narrowly drafted. wakaremas-ka?
Yes, it's business oriented. Why? As mentioned, that's how you reach spread in applications. And speaking about the vast majority of users, servers and workstations is hardly a narrow subject.

Native? To the more recent versions of Windows perhaps. But in the world of Windows not everyone can afford the newest and shinyest.
The Windows Installer technology came with Windows 2000 natively, which means that it's been on the market roughly 6 years now. In most cases meaning 2 hardware generations, or at least one.

Standard? That comes down to your background. If you are a business Windows admin for a company that has enough liquid assets to stay ahead of planned obsolecence then perhaps it is a standard. If not then there are many sometimes confusing alternatives etc. I know it is scarry to think about. But there are big companies out there still running decent install bases of Windows 95! Not to mention 98, ME, etc. ME/2000 is the first version of Windows that even came with Windows Installer! Now what about home users? The situation is even worse for the most part. ;)
I'm sorry, but you're wrong again. It is quite uncommon with Wintendos and NT4-machines on companies today, even small ones. All Wintendo's and the NT4 OS went out of market in 2002 (except Ms's worst OS ever, WinME which lived to 2003). You really should know what you're talking about if you make such statements...

Free to use? Perhaps. Are they free to make though? Does MS provide any free tools? I see alot of payware.
That is true. Many companies try to make money, otherwise they wouldn't exist. But there are free alternatives, like WinINSTALL LE & Caphyon Advanced Installer for example.

Finally, statements like "When it comes to Windows based businesses with point and click admins you are probably right. There was never much hope for that bunch anyway.", and "Lets just put it down to this. Firefox." aren't very thought through and quite pubertal. How many users have Firefox? How many users will ever have it? Why isn't it growing as much as the hype? To me it seems simple. It's not spreading faster in reality because it isn't easily deployable in most companies around the world. The lack of an MSI-package (although there's custom one's floating around), administration and maintenance tools are a big part of the reason if you ask me. In the Firefox case, there's also the unneccessity of the application itself. The difference between IE which is also freely available and Firefox are very small. Changing simply doesn't give any notable advantages. This isn't a narrowminded statement, it is reality. You can ironize how much you want over this, but the facts are still there. :)

I always thought that people who develop software, whether freeware or not, wants it to spread. Even if the "aim" are private individuals, why not package the application using industry standards instead of special solutions? It has even taken some large companies quite some time to come to this realization. In your case, Winzip still haven't got it right. If 7Zip is a competitor, what substantial advantages does it have over existing software (well besides the fact that it's free)? I don't see compression ratios as the main factor. I don't think that the vast majority of users give a damned about the extra few percents of compression ratio. It is the ease of use, compability, maintenance, updates and installation.

[Emp3r0r]

@zambelli: :goodpost:

I used have no problem with 7z until recently when media player classic went to 7z. Since then I've been pissed because every time I want to hook someone up with the best media player, it goes from simple installation to complex.

I don't know if you guys have family or routinely help folks with their computer but I think it sucks to have to install 7zip just to put a codec or a media player on someone’s box for them since 99.9% of the time they won’t have WinRar or 7zip already installed.

So I also beg and plead, stop using 7zip for convenience sake. Think about our families and the less technically fortunate people when you 7zip something for distribution.

[Eretria-chan]

NO! You bastard! Because you're lazy doesn't mean WE should suffer. Don't say things like that....

[Wilbert]

@Eretria-chan,

I suggest you change the tone in your previous post a bit. I know you didn't mean it seriously, but let's keep it civilized.

[Eretria-chan]

Then I apologize. I didn't mean it to be rude.

[Neo Neko]

Yes, it's business oriented. Why? As mentioned, that's how you reach spread in applications. And speaking about the vast majority of users, servers and workstations is hardly a narrow subject.

Agree to disagree. K? The funny thing is I am not disagreeing with you that business has an "effect". It is just that I think; or rather know that there is more to it than just business adoption. In regards to the total picture while business does have an important effect it is not the largest affector of software adoption. Large but not largest. Focus on it solely and you still miss the wider view.

Vast majority of users? Maybe. Vast majority of servers? Depends on the context. So not hardly. Last I checked at least for businesses dealing with internet facings and transactions the majority of servers were a flavor of *nix with Apache and not Windows and IIS. Whether it was by choice or by hosting is another issue though. But I take it that this is a segment you don't work with alot. You sound to be more of an internal networking consulting specialist for homogenus networks. ;)

The Windows Installer technology came with Windows 2000 natively, which means that it's been on the market roughly 6 years now. In most cases meaning 2 hardware generations, or at least one.

Yes it came with 2000/ME. Already been through this. But not everyone is running Windows versions that are that new. And even though you can download windows installer as addons all the way back to Win95 most don't due to the fact that windows installer has no real advantage for the most part on non NT OS.


I'm sorry, but you're wrong again. It is quite uncommon with Wintendos and NT4-machines on companies today, even small ones. All Wintendo's and the NT4 OS went out of market in 2002 (except Ms's worst OS ever, WinME which lived to 2003). You really should know what you're talking about if you make such statements...

Scuse me? Your experience is not the totality of everything. I have different experiences. That does not make either one of us wrong. I have worked with many who either still had large if not solely 9X rollouts. But a few working with pre-PCDOS/MSDOS whatever technology. Scarry thought there are many out there still running mainframes with serially attached 9600baud dumb terminals in brilliant black and green. It was not more than a year or two ago that Sprint finally phased out all their Win 95 systems at their world headquarters located not far from here. So if even a big boy like Sprint is just weaning itself off Win95 what kind of outlook does that give for small businesses who often have less expertiese and resources? Not saying that there aren't those lucky enough to have all NT5 or NT5.1 or better rollouts. But I have not seen anything putting them at majority or lion share status. ;)


That is true. Many companies try to make money, otherwise they wouldn't exist. But there are free alternatives, like WinINSTALL LE & Caphyon Advanced Installer for example.

It has become increasingly apparent in recent times that you don't have to charge for software to make money from it. Not saying that their isn't an appeal to directly recieving cash on sales of software. But software was free long before people payed for it. So the pay software model may be the newest but not only option. ;) As to the two software titles given I will dig around and see what I can find. Thanks for the little bit of info.


Finally, statements like "When it comes to Windows based businesses with point and click admins you are probably right. There was never much hope for that bunch anyway.",

Aww come on. You left out the equal dig I gave to the *nixers. :p


and "Lets just put it down to this. Firefox." aren't very thought through and quite pubertal.

And there you cut the anology short. Not that there was anything pubertal about anything there. Interesting term though. :p Can't say I have heard that used much or at all. Applied like a synonym of infantile. at any rate. I see you are as perplexed with me as I am with you. Perhaps more so. ;)


How many users have Firefox? How many users will ever have it? Why isn't it growing as much as the hype? To me it seems simple.

LOL it would be to you. ;) That whole group of statements is nothing but one giant straw man argument. We can no more determine the actual number of users that have firefox as we can those that have IE. We can't even determine highly accurate percentage numbers. At best there are some generally accepted aproximate percentages. Almost all of which show a definate decline in IE usage and a definate increase in FireFox and others. FireFox is by those numbers the second most used browser on the internet. With usage multiples higher than it's next closest competitors. Not to mention that while IE is not where it is on merit by and large FireFox is. ;)


It's not spreading faster in reality because it isn't easily deployable in most companies around the world.

Funny thing is that that is changing. If Dell and others continue the trend it might be coming on many or even most leased systems. Leasing being a popular consumption method for many medium/large scale business IT needs. But not end consumers though they will be getting it too.


The lack of an MSI-package (although there's custom one's floating around),

Not only that. There is an official one in the works as well. It's still a ways off. But that is the transition you have to make going from a home to business environment. :D And once that happens even you MSI only holdouts will have to stop complaining a bit. Though I suspect you will find soething even more inane. Like the largely redundant technology of IE security zones. :p


administration and maintenance tools are a big part of the reason if you ask me.

I agree that they will help get the point and clickers onboard.


In the Firefox case, there's also the unneccessity of the application itself. The difference between IE which is also freely available and Firefox are very small. Changing simply doesn't give any notable advantages. This isn't a narrowminded statement, it is reality.

You are mistaken there. It isn't reality. It is infact narrowminded and perhaps uneducated. There are significant differences. And IE is not that freely avalible. Where are the IE downloads for BSD/Linux/AIX/HPUX/etc? They never existed. Where are the IE downloads for Solaris? They were killed off before WMP for Solaris was IIRC. Some time about IE3/4. Whatabout IE for Mac? Nope gone as well. I suppose it depends on what you mean freely avalible. Even in the Windows world there are not up to date IE installs for many Windows versions. Finally lets get to the advantages. Which there are many. I will attempt to condense them here though. The far superior CSS support in FireFox and friends allow for lighter, simpler, more effective and interactive page layouts than even IE7 will offer let alone IE6. Many designers pray that Microsoft may fix their box model bugs that have for a large part of the last decade held back the adoption of universal CSS layouts in favor of older buggier and bloated table layout methods. The adoption of CSS based layouts will make web development much more productive allowing one document to have many easily defined layouts from full desktop down to embeded mobile browsing. (And a handy-capable ramp for IE users) Something not possible with the design limitations imposed by many of IE6 flawed implementations. Complex javascripts and server generated pages are currently required. Which increase both server and user load unneccesarily. Not to mention better media support and interactivity for things like SVG and PNG. Which will allow the development of even ritcher and simpler sites. Did you know that in almost any non-IE browser it is now possible to deliver SVG graphics and HTML data as one simple compound file? Very nice. And from a designers point of view usefull. It has it's benefits for non designers as well. This will allow SVG enabled office suites to export business data graphs etc that are directly embeddable in web documents without raster translations. Meaning they will be both more readable and scaleable. Again less work on the designer/coder side. Less hassle from the user side. There is also a huge security difference in FireFoxe's favor. Whether it is the more opne nature of the code or the bug fixing process. To the increased dificulty of getting"root" in Firefox over IE since Firefox is not as needlessly bundled. There is a "DIFFERENCE". A big one. Be you a user, designer, or administrator. ;)


I always thought that people who develop software, whether freeware or not, wants it to spread. Even if the "aim" are private individuals, why not package the application using industry standards instead of special solutions?

The standard depends on not only the industry in question but also the target in question. MSI isn't the industry standard. It is the NT5+ MCSE Active Directory standard. The reasons that MSI was not the primary packaging chosen were many. In home userland which is where Mozilla grew up MSIs are rare and un-important. MSI also puts more restrictions on who can install it in some environments. Especially when the software does not require that much special instalation to be done. If any really. Finally it is no simple feat to make MSIs or everone would be doing it including point and click admins. It is also quite a departure from the install systems of most other platforms. The MSI issue will resolve itself once there is enough demand for it. If it hasn't already. Which it has. Though it has not been rubber stamped by the Mozilla organization. Which for what little it really means will keep the more paranoid from adopting. :D


It has even taken some large companies quite some time to come to this realization. In your case, Winzip still haven't got it right. If 7Zip is a competitor, what substantial advantages does it have over existing software (well besides the fact that it's free)? I don't see compression ratios as the main factor. I don't think that the vast majority of users give a damned about the extra few percents of compression ratio. It is the ease of use, compability, maintenance, updates and installation.

7z is easy to use. The software it comes with is also very compatible with all traditional ZIPs. Minus some of the newer or non-standard tools which have extended or tweaked the format. It is also easy to matinance. AD roulouts are fine. But you don't have to upgrade each new version of 7-zip that comes out. Update it every time you update your ghost image and roll it out that way. ZIP will still always work better in 7-zip than WFM and 7z will have little to no issues with it's format. Oh and it's not about a few percents of extra compression. But rather about tens of percents in many cases. And that's just with 7-zip produced ZIPs and not even 7-zip's own format. Which is not something to ignore easily.

[Audionut]

Bandwidth ain't free. If it can be saved from simply switching to a new compression method, than all the better.

The numerous dial-up users that are still out there, prefer smaller files aswell, for obvious reasons.

But hey, Who gives are rats ass about bandwidth when you're not paying for it.
Or dial-up users when your sitting pretty with broadband or better.

Hey.

[Richard Berg]

My position on this issue is to offend as many apologists on both sides as possible. To wit:


The recent emergence of 7zip as described by Zambelli is extremely annoying. There was no need to disrupt the zip + rar paradigm in 2002. Furthermore, their Windows app's interface and features are inferior to WinRAR.
The integration of Zip into XP is extremely annoying. Whoever thought this
http://richardberg.net/bin/temp/annoying-zip.png
would make Explorer more useful should be dragged out & shot. As far as I know the only way to disable it is to manually unregister zipfldr.dll.

[Neo Neko]

My position on this issue is to offend as many apologists on both sides as possible. To wit:


The recent emergence of 7zip as described by Zambelli is extremely annoying. There was no need to disrupt the zip + rar paradigm in 2002. Furthermore, their Windows app's interface and features are inferior to WinRAR.

I don't think you managed to offend anyone. Which is a good thing. ;)

Though I have to say to you Emp3r0r and Zambelli. Sorry I am not changing. So you are just gonna have to deal. In fact I think I am gonna start using a few other archive formats to spice things up. It's all about the right tools and formats for the job. And that is almost never going to be ZIP and rarely RAR. :D

[foxyshadis]

Well, if you must, at least be gracious enough to make sure they aren't readable by Winrar. RK, SITX, SQZ, and SBC should do nicely.

[Mug Funky]

@ Richard Berg:

thanks heaps! that big long zipfile list was really starting to annoy me :)

regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll

fixed it :)

[Doom9]

Some time about IE3/4. I'm afraid that's incorrect. There was even an IE 5.5 for Solaris, and it worked quite well. At the time, I even thought it was the best browser for Solaris (of course the competition was Netscape 4 and that sucked big time).

And as far as security goes, Firefox's record is also less than stellar. Today, the biggest security advantage is that Firefox security fixes are released more quickly, than those for IE. In the end it really doesn't matter whethere there are 10 bugs that allow somebody to take over your machine, or one.. all it takes is one that is exploited.

Not to mention that while IE is not where it is on merit by and large FireFox is. I strongly believe you are seriously mistaken on that one. In the non Windows world, maybe it is.. and Firefox imho is the best browser out there, regardless of platform. However, to reach the ~10 % userbase it's said to have, that means significant cuts into the Windows population, and they all just happen to have IE pre-installed. If users really cared much about the missing or halfway implemented features of IE, they'd have migrated away a long time ago.. the reason we saw such change in 2005 was another one: Joe Average was told in papers and via Television that IE puts their computer at risk, and that Firefox is safer. If you hear that enough, it starts to sink in, and now matter how careless you might be, if you have the option to download a 5MB piece of software, keep on doing what you're doing just the same way, but have a safer system, that is something that will not go unheard. I dare say that the safety angle is the main reason why Firefox is making inroads into Windows, not features and standard compliance and whatnot.

Even with Dell, they cannot get rid of IE because Windowsupdate needs it. So is Firefox really going to be the default browser and how fast are people switching back once the annoying "this isn't your default browser, would you like to make it the default" comes up when they visit Windowsupdate?

[Neo Neko]

I'm afraid that's incorrect. There was even an IE 5.5 for Solaris, and it worked quite well. At the time, I even thought it was the best browser for Solaris (of course the competition was Netscape 4 and that sucked big time).

Interesting. I would not have and did not guess that support was that recent. Even if it was almost a decade ago. :p But that was all because no matter how bad Netscapes product was at the time. It was still competition that actually got Microsoft off their collective duffs to actually write a decent (for that time) product. With the death of netscape at version 4 it is more than just coincidence that IE6 was much much less than spectacular, special, or even that good at all. At least compared to IE5.x.

And as far as security goes, Firefox's record is also less than stellar. Today, the biggest security advantage is that Firefox security fixes are released more quickly, than those for IE.

Less than stellar though it may be it "is" still better. And faster releases are IMO quite important. Especially when you considder that Firefox now has auto update built in and on by default. Meaning that every time the user starts the program they will know about patches and updates. As opposed to having to navigate to windows update and finding the patches etc. One improvement though that could be made is a more noticable mechanism to alert the user of updates.

In the end it really doesn't matter whethere there are 10 bugs that allow somebody to take over your machine, or one.. all it takes is one that is exploited.

Quite right. Which is why I take more comfort in Firefox. It is fixed quicker regardless of the number or severity of the flaws. Which it has traditionally had less of anyway. :D

I strongly believe you are seriously mistaken on that one. In the non Windows world, maybe it is.. and Firefox imho is the best browser out there, regardless of platform. However, to reach the ~10 % userbase it's said to have, that means significant cuts into the Windows population, and they all just happen to have IE pre-installed.

Like I said there are no definative numbers. But yours might be a bit low or out of date. ;) Check it. (http://digg.com/technology/New_XiTi_Study_Reports%3A_Firefox_20_Marketshare_In_Europe_)

If users really cared much about the missing or halfway implemented features of IE, they'd have migrated away a long time ago..

There is alot more to it that that. And having said that there are many non technical users which have switched to IE alternatives. Firefox or not.

the reason we saw such change in 2005 was another one: Joe Average was told in papers and via Television that IE puts their computer at risk, and that Firefox is safer. If you hear that enough, it starts to sink in, and now matter how careless you might be, if you have the option to download a 5MB piece of software, keep on doing what you're doing just the same way, but have a safer system, that is something that will not go unheard. I dare say that the safety angle is the main reason why Firefox is making inroads into Windows, not features and standard compliance and whatnot.

Hey even if they have to be told about it. It is still merit based word of mouth. All the papers etc could have just as easily said people should switch to Opera or perhaps Maxon or whatever the sucessor to MyIE2 was. Saftey can be as much a feature as anything else. And while I am not gonna argue the fact that the saftey "feature" ;) did win over alot of the non-techies it was not the sole factor for all of them. The only ones that fall in that category are the inepts who regard a computer as some sort of closed appliance. If all the other features were not there the switch would hardly be taking place. Because lets face it folks the safest browser on the planet would have to be something like lynx or maybe manually interpriting the HTML output of a web server via a telnet session. :p But last I checked those two options were not even really blips on the radar. ;)

Even with Dell, they cannot get rid of IE because Windowsupdate needs it. So is Firefox really going to be the default browser and how fast are people switching back once the annoying "this isn't your default browser, would you like to make it the default" comes up when they visit Windowsupdate?

Actually it is quite possible to load windows update in firefox. And "native" windows update support may yet be in firefoxe's future. But for now a bit of fenagling on Dell or someone elses part and pre-installing IE-tab with firefox means that while IE will still be installed it is possible to set it up to be invisible to the user and only invoked as needed. :D

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/3636/temp1yz.th.jpg (http://img33.imageshack.us/my.php?image=temp1yz.jpg)

Should also mention that the class of users you are talking about have not likely ventured over to windows update before anyway. :p And with many OEM turning auto update on by default they probably never will. Regardless of IE. Save maybe business IT admins etc.

[Doom9]

As opposed to having to navigate to windows update and finding the patches etc.It's not necessary for Windows.. they pretty much force you to activate automatic patch installation these days.. it's reasonable to assume that all non computer savvy types have this enabled, and the nagging of WindowsUpdate is more penetrant than the nagging of Firefox (for whatever reason, my machine at work would never signal that my Firefox 1.06 was severely out of date.. the upgrade to 1.5 was done out of my own accord).

Less than stellar though it may be it "is" still better. I guess its kinda unfair to compare since IE is much more of a target considering its spread, and the time the code has been out there without significant changes. Yet, in the last year we had to upgrade quite a few times due to security issues. If you take "speed of updates" out of the equation, it's not so clearcut anymore. And I wouldn't take upgrade speeds into account.. that goes in a different category imho... the "how important is the fixing of security flaws to the manufacturers". While naturally this relates to security, a secure browser would start in a managed language to begin with so there cannot be any security exploits.

All the papers etc could have just as easily said people should switch to Opera or perhaps Maxon or whatever the sucessor to MyIE2 was.Considering Opera has (or had now) ads built-in.. would you suggest a browser that you have to pay for or a free alternative?

I frankly don't know a single person whose computer knowledge is not quite comparable to mine, who did switch for any other reason that me or TV telling them the browser is safer. And I do work in the IT world.. so I'd dare venture my experience is somewhat representative. Even the PNG you posted that IE cannot render properly.. when I used IE I couldn't care less..

[Sirber]

Considering Opera has (or had now) ads built-in.. would you suggest a browser that you have to pay for or a free alternative?Had. It's been removed from version 8 IIRC.

[masken]

@Neo Neko, I don't know where you get all your ideas from really... don't want to go into the personal fight you seem to aim at with the irony you try to bring in your posts, but all I can say is that you seem to lack work/company experience. Of course there's also many *nix machines out there. You're viewing this from a nix/windows fight perspective which isn't what I'm talking about at all.

You also seem to mix terminal-based business systems with client OS's. What you've seen in most cases are probably terminal emulators, running on a Windows box in the bottom. Of course there's also large installations of pure terminal-based systems, but these are usually at very large companies. I've worked in europe for about 10 years as a consultant, so I do have some experience in both hard/software rollouts and software projects. In Europe, the SMB-segment stands for the vast majority of companies and people (ie, 1-100 employees). SMB businesses usually don't have special terminal based systems. In fact it is very rare. They run Windows boxes, and probably have a Win2000 or 2003 SBE server in a corner somewhere.

My point when writing about the Windows Installer Technology is that it IS present om most systems, as already mentioned, Win2000 has been on the market for about 6 years now. How many companies do you think runs 6 year old PC's without warranty or reinstallation? Or without having installed software that requires Windows Installer? If you do not see past this then I don't know how to explain this for you... ;)

Regarding statistics about Firefox and IE, that is one of the easiest things to be fairly accurate about. Just look in a couple of web server logs.

Regarding standards for packaging applications, I think that most experienced programmers will tell you that if there is a standard, it is an MSI package. Perhaps wrapped to an executable with Wise or InstallShield.

[Caroliano]

I don't know about the 1st world but here in Brazil is rare to find servers runing windows 2000 with WinXP clients. In small companys or things like that you will find more NT4 servers with win98 clients. Anything above that and you can seriously question if they have realy bought the license from Microsoft for all their machines.

And if you go to any library, supermarket, shop or whatever place that need an database, they will be runing these brilliant black and green apps in their old 486DX. The point is: why upgrade if everything is working fine?

And I learn what is an MSI package in this tread. Never saw one in my life... most home users would say so.

[Sirber]

Regarding standards for packaging applications, I think that most experienced programmers will tell you that if there is a standard, it is an MSI package. Perhaps wrapped to an executable with Wise or InstallShield.Most software I use are using NSIS :)

[Neo Neko]

It's not necessary for Windows.. they pretty much force you to activate automatic patch installation these days.. it's reasonable to assume that all non computer savvy types have this enabled,

I already said as much in a previous post. But I have to disagree that at this point it is reasonable to assume that most have it enabled. I don't argue that all new systems sold with XP have it on by default. But that is only "new" systems. And unless Microsoft has somehow managed to backdoor their way in and turn it on for their all their users a vast majority will still not have it enabled. Especially in business installs. They avoid it like the plague. But then that probably would not be any different for FireFox.

and the nagging of WindowsUpdate is more penetrant than the nagging of Firefox (for whatever reason, my machine at work would never signal that my Firefox 1.06 was severely out of date.. the upgrade to 1.5 was done out of my own accord).

Yeah there is still work to be done. We will have to see when the next update comes out if you get the notice. There were issues with firewalls, nat, etc.

I guess its kinda unfair to compare since IE is much more of a target considering its spread, and the time the code has been out there without significant changes. Yet, in the last year we had to upgrade quite a few times due to security issues. If you take "speed of updates" out of the equation, it's not so clearcut anymore. And I wouldn't take upgrade speeds into account.. that goes in a different category imho... the "how important is the fixing of security flaws to the manufacturers". While naturally this relates to security, a secure browser would start in a managed language to begin with so there cannot be any security exploits.

Well we will have a while to wait then. Considering that managed languages are still low penetration in alot of areas. I have not heard any info about IE7 being completely rewriten or ported to .NET. Since it is being made avalible for XP I don't think it will be. (could be wrong) But maybe if the Mozilla group can keep Microsoft working IE8 might eventually get there.

Considering Opera has (or had now) ads built-in.. would you suggest a browser that you have to pay for or a free alternative?

Well since even with the old ad-support version there is no money lost on the computer users part to most of them it is still "free". The ads would be an annoyance. But if it was all about security that would hardly be a big issue. I mean if they are more secure and provide what the user needs who would begrudge them getting paid? But while security was a big point it wasn't the only one.

I frankly don't know a single person whose computer knowledge is not quite comparable to mine, who did switch for any other reason that me or TV telling them the browser is safer. And I do work in the IT world.. so I'd dare venture my experience is somewhat representative.

What is wrong with that though. And if it is wrong who's fault is it. Mozilla's or TV and people like yourself? I have gotten several people to switch for non-security related issues. Why because I tell them about what it can do. Want to get rid of all popups? The NoScript plugin along with FireFoxe's built in support all but preclude you ever getting an unwanted popup. (and sometimes some wanted ones when you are first starting. That and there can still be DOM popups.) Tired of those flashing you are a w[e]inner banner ads or bandwidth sucking flash ads? Adblock and the filter set update plugin can completely remove them in many many cases. Those are major usability advantages. But there are many more minor or cosmetic customizations possible with FF that IE can't do. Mouse guestures can be a life saver for your porn addicted friends or just casual surfers alike. There is something for everyone there. And people would switch if they knew. But apparently someone is not doing their job. ;)

Even the PNG you posted that IE cannot render properly.. when I used IE I couldn't care less..

You say that as if it were past tense. IE still can't render the current one. And at any rate I did not create it thinking it would cause mass conversion. I did it because it was fun, I could, and I still get confused IE users thinking that my pic is broken when it is actually just their browser. :D

[Neo Neko]

@Neo Neko, I don't know where you get all your ideas from really... don't want to go into the personal fight you seem to aim at with the irony you try to bring in your posts, but all I can say is that you seem to lack work/company experience. Of course there's also many *nix machines out there. You're viewing this from a nix/windows fight perspective which isn't what I'm talking about at all.

Don't be so sure that you aren't talking about that. Or that I am. ;) When you talk about proprietary installer formats only supported on the most recent windows versions that excludes everyone else as being "what everyone should use" or as "the standard" you could be construed to imply exactly that sort of thing.

You also seem to mix terminal-based business systems with client OS's.

I didn't make big distinctions yes. Because to me terminals are more often associated with mainframes running *NIX.

What you've seen in most cases are probably terminal emulators, running on a Windows box in the bottom.

Trust me that is not the case. I have logged on to the server shells. And they were text mode Unix systems. End of story. The only Windows server on the network was an exchange server. ALL other services are handled by databases etc on the Unix back ends with a mixture of SuSE and Redhat servers far outnumbering the Windows one. There are some Windows based clients at a few select locations. Running Microsoft's latest and greatest. Windows 98. That's right. Windows 98 not 98SE. Oh while I am at it they do have Windows 95 based register systems. :D Highly unreliable. But they bought it all those years ago and are determined to get their moneys worth even after being burned. Many retailers etc in the area don't have big Windows rollouts. Many still have a high *NIX presence. And the Windows installs they have are rapidly reaching the decade old mark.

Of course there's also large installations of pure terminal-based systems, but these are usually at very large companies.

I suppose some of the ones I describe could be considered "large". But there are many small ones here who don't have a Windows install that was purchased in the last 8 or 9+ years as well.

I've worked in europe for about 10 years as a consultant, so I do have some experience in both hard/software rollouts and software projects. In Europe, the SMB-segment stands for the vast majority of companies and people (ie, 1-100 employees). SMB businesses usually don't have special terminal based systems. In fact it is very rare. They run Windows boxes, and probably have a Win2000 or 2003 SBE server in a corner somewhere.

That's great. And I don't deny that you are competent at what you do. But bear this in mind. You are serving in a highly different market. On the other side of the globe. You can't just assume those conditions there are universal. ;)

My point when writing about the Windows Installer Technology is that it IS present om most systems,

Where you are that is. Kudos.

as already mentioned, Win2000 has been on the market for about 6 years now.

And yet many companies "here" still use versions predating it heavily.

How many companies do you think runs 6 year old PC's without warranty or reinstallation?

Lots. Just because a system is 6+years old does not mean it is out of waranty. Depending uppon your vendor they can offer extended warantys and service. And many do. As I said before it often comes down to "If it's not severely cripling us don't fix it.". It works and that is what they are after. They don't always need the latest and greatest.

Or without having installed software that requires Windows Installer? If you do not see past this then I don't know how to explain this for you... ;)

Here there are quite a few that have never touched an MSI.

Regarding statistics about Firefox and IE, that is one of the easiest things to be fairly accurate about. Just look in a couple of web server logs.

Wrong. Who's logs? Mine have had 60%+ firefox at times. Microsoft , hotmail, or MSN's? Safe to assume that IE is seen 99.9999999999999% of the time there. :p So who's logs can we look at that will be totally representative and accurate? Could there even be an agreement on that let alone unaversal agreement on what the numbers from that mean? Should we count downloads or bundled versions in Microsoft's case? Nope that is a whole nother can of worms that will not get you very far.

Regarding standards for packaging applications, I think that most experienced programmers will tell you that if there is a standard, it is an MSI package. Perhaps wrapped to an executable with Wise or InstallShield.

Programmers packaging for solely MS Windows based business consumption? Perhaps. Programmers in general? That really depends. I am with Sirber here. I see alot more NSIS on a regular basis.

[dragongodz]

I see alot more NSIS on a regular basis.
and i see a LOT of Inno setups aswell. its funny but i havent seen any problems posted anywhere from using alternite installers such as these since they are self contained and dont require you to have any special software on your system to install them.

[Neo Neko]

and i see a LOT of Inno setups aswell. its funny but i havent seen any problems posted anywhere from using alternite installers such as these since they are self contained and dont require you to have any special software on your system to install them.

Well in Masken's defense MSI is a different beast. If you have a large MS Windows 2000 or better network with at least 1 domain and domain controller set up. MSI provides a simple integrated way to distribute software and updates to the whole network from the controller including ACLs etc. Just point and click and the controller replicates the changes throughout the network for you automatically. Which is why it is the choice of the point and click admins. There are other ways to do it. But they are either tedious or technical/creative/custom. It is a nice setup if you can get it. But the chances that you will ever use it at home are almost nill. Chances that you will ever need it at home are almost nill.

Having said that I have set up Samba-TNG AKA 3.0 as a PDC at home for the few Windows installs there. 2 out of 11 or so systems. Makes it nice since I can set up a roaming profile for all the systems including the Windows ones. A roaming profile is basically being able to log on to any system on the network and having your files and settings "follow" you. It is really easy to do under Linux/BSD. You just share your home folder via NFS or CIFS share and map it on each system. Or just map it on one system and merge the differences with the others etc. But it is a pain on Windows. You MUST have a domain controller. It isn't as simple as just sharing home folders and systems settings.

[dragongodz]

MSI provides a simple integrated way to distribute software and updates to the whole network from the controller including ACLs etc. Just point and click and the controller replicates the changes throughout the network for you automatically.
yes i know but lets look at whats being released in general with 7zip and installers such as nsis and inno. the majority seems to me to be single user type software and not generally business rollout. so i fail to see where this is any real concern for now.

infact lets get back to the original arguement(i think) that 7zip wouldnt become popular with business unless it used msi for said reasons. well is that even 7zips aim to start with, that is to please business ? i somehow doubt its very high on priorities to the guys and gals putting their sweat in to developing it. of course if a business wanted to use it for their own software for business rollout then surely its also up to them to do the installer as they wish, such as msi or not.

does this mean that it wont grow and the format be supported ? well obviously not since, just for example, winrar(amongst others) has already adopted the ability to decompress 7zip archives.

[Neo Neko]

yes i know but lets look at whats being released in general with 7zip and installers such as nsis and inno. the majority seems to me to be single user type software and not generally business rollout. so i fail to see where this is any real concern for now.

Hey trust me I am with you. That is more or less what I have been trying to imply to masken. When and if there is a business need there will be an MSI. But seeing as that there is not much to ACL and only a few files and registry settings to replicate MSI is a bit overkill. But it is what the point and clickers want. As it saves them from 2% extra work.

infact lets get back to the original arguement(i think) that 7zip wouldnt become popular with business unless it used msi for said reasons. well is that even 7zips aim to start with, that is to please business ? i somehow doubt its very high on priorities to the guys and gals putting their sweat in to developing it. of course if a business wanted to use it for their own software for business rollout then surely its also up to them to do the installer as they wish, such as msi or not.

Yep. And some are looking into just that. ;) So there is interest. It is just slower going than if someone was paid to sit there and get it done. But that shouldn't stop it from being rolled out in the mean time.

does this mean that it wont grow and the format be supported ? well obviously not since, just for example, winrar(amongst others) has already adopted the ability to decompress 7zip archives.

Indeed. If it were not a decent format and no one was using it. A pay software company would not bother implementing/adding it. So that does provide validation to those who wish to use it. And if you are in a MSI only business environment and must spend money for all software you use there are Winrar install MSI IIRC. Unfortuantly many don't see that. They see 7-zip as the 7z format and think that nothing else supports it and therefore must be crap. :p When I can think of at least 4 or 5 off the top of my head that support it directly. Winrar ofcourse IZarc, 7-zip naturally, LZMA tools for you non wine using *nixers, and Powerarchiver. But there are many many more.

[aleste81]

memory used in 7zip are a monster with you compare with winrar

Stupid, that is exactly where 7z *shines* is that it has unlimited dictionnary size (Winrar = only 4 MB !).

On the emulation scene all romsets are compressed with 7z.

[Dark Shikari]

Stupid, that is exactly where 7z *shines* is that it has unlimited dictionnary size (Winrar = only 4 MB !).

On the emulation scene all romsets are compressed with 7z.Wow, a necro of a really really shitty thread. :rolleyes:

P.S. To anyone who is dumb enough to agree with the OP, WinRAR supports 7z, making his entire argument completely moot. Moreover, the argument that "we don't need another compression format, its only 10-15% better, and few people have the decompresser" could be applied just as well to, say, H.264 video or AAC audio!

[Shinigami-Sama]

Wow, a necro of a really really shitty thread. :rolleyes:

P.S. To anyone who is dumb enough to agree with the OP, WinRAR supports 7z, making his entire argument completely moot. Moreover, the argument that "we don't need another compression format, its only 10-15% better, and few people have the decompresser" could be applied just as well to, say, H.264 video or AAC audio!

don't forget this thread was over 2 years ago

but it reminds me why I don't feel bad for zam


is it can be lock time nao?

[Dark Shikari]

don't forget this thread was over 2 years agoYes, that's why I called it a necro :p

[Shinigami-Sama]

Yes, that's why I called it a necro :p

well zam had a bit of a point
nothing else supported 7z for a while
then almost overnight everything supported it
meh
wheres don when you need him eh?