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?