Which file compression program is the best?

[mangopudding]

Like what the title says, what file compression program is the best in termof file compression ratio? Anyone got any good recomendation for such a program? Is it possible to compress a 500MB file into a 50MB file?

[Evans]

Only if the file contains a lot of "dummy data" (filling). 7zip is a decent format, but RAR happens to be better in some cases. Really, there's no noticeable difference between the two most of the time. However, WinRAR is less of a resources hog when compressing.

[Kazekage Gaara]

Like what the title says, what file compression program is the best in termof file compression ratio? Anyone got any good recomendation for such a program?

Well, in my opinion, Winrar is the best. Some people might say 7zip and I also agree with that but a high level compression will take, I think, more time to compress and the actual outcome of the whole thing might disappoint you given the amount of time you or the program spent compressing the whole thing.

Also, I prefer Winrar coz its widely used and that way you can share your stuff with your friends without having to worry that they MIGHT NOT have Winrar, which is highly unlikely, nevertheless, I always put a winrar setup file in all my burns (if need be )

Is it possible to compress a 500MB file into a 50MB file?

Well, that depends/changes from file to file. If its an ISO then it MIGHT compress it (for example you must've seen one of those Gameshark or Codebreaker DVDs for the PS2, which compress down to 20 mb and when uncompressed actually becomes 1.5 GB). Nothing to get amazed here, its just that that particular file had, what shall we say, more 1s and 0s so it compresses a lot, which in other words can also be said that it had a lot of dummy data (although am not sure of that proper term). If its a video file like a Divx or Xvid movie or of any other format, then it will actually be already compressed by the codec itself, so it won't compress any further.

I know my explanation might make you a little bit confused, but if you read it properly, you can get what am trying to explain

Edit:

Only if the file contains a lot of "dummy data" (filling). 7zip is a decent format, but RAR happens to be better in some cases. Really, there's no noticeable difference between the two most of the time. However, WinRAR is less of a resources hog when compressing.

Exactly

[SegNin]

If you have alot of RAM (1.5 GB at least), then 7-Zip will give you the best compression using these settings:

Archive Format: 7z
Compression Level: Ultra
Dictionary Size: 128 MB
Create Solid Archive

I don't know if Word Size makes any difference but I assume it does, in which case 273 is the highest setting that I see.

But using these settings will mean that it takes longer to compress and extract--and people with older comps with 256 MB RAM may not be able to extract your file or iof they can it will take forever.

I prefer WinRar myself, btw.
For me, it has the right balance between compression size & compression/extraction time.

[maca]

Is it possible to compress a 500MB file into a 50MB file?

It depends on the file. If it's a music, picture or video file it won't compress much because they're already compressed. 500MB of text on the other hand would be different.

Winrar and 7zip are probably the most popular.

There's a program called UHarc too which is said to compress better than those but it takes way longer to compress/decompress the files.

[master01]

've been using WinRAR for as long as I can remember, because when I checked up on it at the time it was the best tool available as far as compression was concerned.

[Lee]

500MB of text on the other hand would be different.

23mb of 12font times new roman text in MS:word is like 2300 pages...

so your saying 50,000pages of 12 font times new roman, in word...

i think to compress that would lag even a bleeding edge gaming computer...

[maca]

23mb of 12font times new roman text in MS:word is like 2300 pages...

so your saying 50,000pages of 12 font times new roman, in word...

i think that would lag even a bleeding edge gaming computer...

I was referring to plain text files not MS word documents, and stating
that a .txt file would compress better than an already compressed file such as a jpeg or mp3.

[Lee]

I was referring to plain text files not MS word documents, and stating
that a .txt file would compress better than an already compressed file such as a jpeg or mp3.

im just saying how outrageous a 500mb test file would be

[Anonymous]

i think that would lag even a bleeding edge gaming computer...

No. It wouldn't. It's still just text.

[Lee]

No. It wouldn't. It's still just text.

sry meant to compress that much information.

[Anonymous]

sry meant to compress that much information.

I've compressed a gig of music on a crappy school laptop, and still had enough ram left over to open firefox and browse EP while it compressed.

You fail. Now leave computer tech before Panda bans you from it.

[Evans]

I've compressed a gig of music on a crappy school laptop, and still had enough ram left over to open firefox and browse EP while it compressed.

You fail. Now leave computer tech before Panda bans you from it.

You sure weren't using 7zip.

[SegNin]

i think to compress that would lag even a bleeding edge gaming computer...

It wouldn't cause the comp to lag, though it would take awhile for it to load from memory, but as long as the comp has enough memory, say 768 MB or more, than it would be able to do it.

You sure weren't using 7zip.

At least not with ultra compression he wasn't.