7z versus rar -- strong everyday compression for Windows

[kikizas]

I've just uploaded a small comparative test of the two compression
formats, 7z and rar. The motive for the test was partly curiosity: I was
curious to know how my favourite compression format (7z) and my
favourite archiver (7-Zip) fare against the strong and famous WinRAR.

http://www.kikizas.net/en/apps.7z.html

I'm thinking of repeating the tests for another two sets of files, to
give a more balanced picture, but I don't know what types of files to
choose. Any suggestions? What types of files do you compress most often?

Greetings,
Demetris

 

[Mel]

I've just uploaded a small comparative test of the two compression
formats, 7z and rar. The motive for the test was partly curiosity: I was
curious to know how my favourite compression format (7z) and my
favourite archiver (7-Zip) fare against the strong and famous WinRAR.

http://www.kikizas.net/en/apps.7z.html

I'm thinking of repeating the tests for another two sets of files, to
give a more balanced picture, but I don't know what types of files to
choose. Any suggestions? What types of files do you compress most often?

Greetings,
Demetris

Isn't their a comparison on the 7Z site?

 

[Hengist_Ludd]

Take a look at the very recent archiver review on DonationCoder
http://www.donationcoder.com/

They looked at the "whole archiver," not just compression and speed, but
didn't make the file types they used as clear as possible.

 

[J44xm]

["kikizas"; Wed, 07 Sep 2005 21:11:47 GMT]

http://www.kikizas.net/en/apps.7z.html

Very nice comparison!

I'm thinking of repeating the tests for another two sets of files, to
give a more balanced picture, but I don't know what types of files to
choose. Any suggestions? What types of files do you compress most often?

I'm not sure what to suggest. Most of what I compress are text documents.

 

[Demetris]

Take a look at the very recent archiver review on DonationCoder
http://www.donationcoder.com/
They looked at the "whole archiver," not just compression and speed, but
didn't make the file types they used as clear as possible.

Hello, Hengist,

I saw it just after I uploaded the comparison. I was not impressed.

A few bits:

QUOTE
"In addition, our freeware award winner, TUGZip, and our Open Source
award winner, 7-Zip, are both excellent tools which continue to improve;
if you only do occasional creation and extraction of archive files, or
if you are an Open Source supporter, we have no hesitation at all in
recommending these tools for your complete archive management needs."

Not worth a comment.

QUOTE
"We created archives using both the default normal compression level in
each program and also its maximum level."

Where are the absolute values for the two levels? Did they test
non-solid compression in the formats that support solid? Solid is not
suitable for all jobs.

QUOTE
"The test file we used for our archive was a game installation and in
its original state was 1084M (1.06G) in size and contained 1,113 files
in 48 folders."

As you said, not "as clear as possible". What is the name of this secret
game?

QUOTE
"On its website, 7-Zip deceptively compares the compression ratio of 7z
Ultra against WinRAR normal in version 3.1, a three-year old (2002)
version. The difference between 7z Ultra to WinRAR Best is statistically
insignificant (usually less than 1% difference)."

The GIMP directory is one of the three sets of files I used in the
comparison I did. For the current versions of GIMP, 7-Zip and WinRAR,
the difference in favour of 7z (7z Ultra Solid compared with rar Best
Solid) is one percentile higher than in the 7-Zip site: the rar archive
is 11% larger than the 7z archive. I uploaded the exact GIMP directory I
used, for anyone to repeat the test. (The difference was also the same
for the 1.100MBs of the whole Program Files directory: the rar archive
was again 11% larger than the 7z archive.)

QUOTE
"TUGZip Common Features Comparison [...]
YES — 7z + RAR file create/extract"

This is how you get TUGZip create rar archives: get Rar.exe from a
WinRAR installation, and put it in a subdirectory in the TUGZip
directory. If this is allowed by the the WinRAR licence, I'm surprised
RARLAB are still in business.

QUOTE
"Worse, other applications that support 7z have exposed its inherent
weakness: slow compression speed for large archives."

This just shows that 7z is not implemented optimally in all applications
that support it (not something specific to the 7z format; the same is
also true for the format zip -- the best implementation of which, by the
way, seems to be in 7-Zip.)

Greetings,
Demetris

 

[Demetris]

Thanks, J44xm!

I'm not sure what to suggest. Most of what I compress are text documents.

Hmm, that gave me an idea, now that I'm posting here: the three ACF file
lists (hjt, csv, text), which are not only useful as test files.

If it is allowed to link to the ftp directory (for test replication), or
upload the compressed set, this would be great.

Greetings,
Demetris

 

[Susan Bugher]

Thanks, J44xm!


Hmm, that gave me an idea, now that I'm posting here: the three ACF file
lists (hjt, csv, text), which are not only useful as test files.

If it is allowed to link to the ftp directory (for test replication), or
upload the compressed set, this would be great.

Hi Demetris,

Of course you can link to the ftp directory - but those files do change (they need updating now).

If you would like to have an archive in the FTP directory for Freeware related test files I'm in
favor (assuming they're not enormous). Perhaps a web page too (Pricelessware site or the wiki) to
explain the project? Why don't you outline what you would like to do (perhaps in a new thread). That
will give others a chance to offer comments/ suggestions/ objections. . .

Susan
--
Posted to alt.comp.freeware
Search alt.comp.freeware (or read it online):
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Pricelessware & ACF: http://www.pricelesswarehome.org
Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org (not maintained)

 

[Demetris]

Hi Demetris,

Of course you can link to the ftp directory - but those files do change
(they need updating now).

If you would like to have an archive in the FTP directory for Freeware
related test files I'm in favor (assuming they're not enormous). Perhaps
a web page too (Pricelessware site or the wiki) to explain the project?
Why don't you outline what you would like to do (perhaps in a new
thread). That will give others a chance to offer comments/ suggestions/
objections. . .

Thanks, Susan,

I finally decided to use standard test files for text compression (the
Canterbury Corpora) instead of reinventing the wheel of compression
tests, but it is good to know we can link to the ftp directory. These
three files are *very* useful. I pointed a link already.

Thanks also for the suggestion about a PLW page. I would be happy to put
this in some form in a PLW page (for one thing, more people would see it
there), but I see two issues:

First, it is marginally relevant -- it is a comparison between formats,
not software.

Second, it is rather inappropriate: in the context of the comparison,
the LGPL'd 7-Zip and the shareware WinRAR are presented, and there are
also links to the WinRAR site.

Here is the link again, for any suggestions and comments:
http://www.kikizas.net/en/apps.7z.html

(BTW, I added two more sets in the comparisons, and I tried to make some
better sense out of the results.)

Greetings,
Demetris

 

[Susan Bugher]

I finally decided to use standard test files for text compression (the
Canterbury Corpora) instead of reinventing the wheel of compression
tests, but it is good to know we can link to the ftp directory. These
three files are *very* useful. I pointed a link already.

Thank you for those kind words. The files been updated (I forgot to remove the old files - TBD
soon).

http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/ftp/
acf_List_2005-09-11.csv
acf_List_2005-09-11.hjt
acf_List_2005-09-11.txt

Thanks also for the suggestion about a PLW page. I would be happy to put
this in some form in a PLW page (for one thing, more people would see it
there), but I see two issues:

First, it is marginally relevant -- it is a comparison between formats,
not software.

I suggest you make that even clearer in the Title
rather than "7z versus rar: strong everyday compression in windows"
perhaps "7z versus rar: a test comparison of two compression formats"

Second, it is rather inappropriate: in the context of the comparison,
the LGPL'd 7-Zip and the shareware WinRAR are presented, and there are
also links to the WinRAR site.

I think you're right in concluding that the content is not a good fit with the ACF/Pricelessware
site. The information is sure to be of interest though - I added your link to the "notes" for 7-Zip
(feel free to revise the note as needed):

7-Zip
Igor Pavlov
http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/acf/P_FILEUTILITIES.php#0011-PW
notes:
http://acfwiki.pbwiki.com/index.php?wiki=0011-PW

Here is the link again, for any suggestions and comments:
http://www.kikizas.net/en/apps.7z.html

Nicely done! I suggest you add a paragraph at the top of the page that summarizes the the key
points/conclusions/content of the web page (7z is free/open, it's faster than rar etc.). IMO
"executive summaries" are very helpful.

Susan
--
Posted to alt.comp.freeware
Search alt.comp.freeware (or read it online):
http://www.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=+group:alt.comp.freeware
Pricelessware & ACF: http://www.pricelesswarehome.org
Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org (not maintained)

 

[Demetris]

I suggest you make that even clearer in the Title
rather than "7z versus rar: strong everyday compression in windows"
perhaps "7z versus rar: a test comparison of two compression formats"

Good point! I changed it to this, until I find something better:
"7z versus rar: two compression formats"

Nicely done! I suggest you add a paragraph at the top of the page that
summarizes the the key points/conclusions/content of the web page (7z is
free/open, it's faster than rar etc.). IMO "executive summaries" are
very helpful.

Thanks! I like the idea of the executive summary. I'll do this, or
something similar, but I'll have to think about how to do it. Such
summaries are not easy to write. (For me, the most difficult part of
this comparison was how to make some sense out of the numbers in concise
terms.)

Thanks for the feedback,
Demetris

 

[Susan Bugher]

Susan Bugher wrote:
Good point! I changed it to this, until I find something better:
"7z versus rar: two compression formats"

Linked here - feel free to revise the description:

http://acfwiki.pbwiki.com/index.php?wiki=FileArchivers

Thanks for the feedback,

YW.

Susan
--
Posted to alt.comp.freeware
Search alt.comp.freeware (or read it online):
http://www.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=+group:alt.comp.freeware
Pricelessware & ACF: http://www.pricelesswarehome.org
Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org (not maintained)

 

[Demetris]

Linked here - feel free to revise the description:

http://acfwiki.pbwiki.com/index.php?wiki=FileArchivers

It seems fine to me.

Greetings,
Demetris

 

[Hengist_Ludd]

Demetris,

Why not join DonationCoder and tell them where they could improve? I had
reservations about the test and don't think there is a "best" archiver
anyway, because different people have different tradeoffs os speed and
size, and other things. However, I think the author gave a bit more
details about his test data set in the DonationCoder forums.

I don't care much about the quality of the GUI because I'd rather have a
command-line archiver with a Norton Commander-clone as a shell for it
(assuming your NC clone can do that). I certainly wasn't going to d/l a 7
or 8 Mb archive just to make zip files with a GUI interface, especially as
many of my most important archives are set up in batch files. Thank
goodness for Info-Zip...

 

[Fulcrum]

Take a look at the very recent archiver review on DonationCoder
http://www.donationcoder.com/

They looked at the "whole archiver," not just compression and speed, but
didn't make the file types they used as clear as possible.

Also have a look at Maximum Compression
(http://www.maximumcompression.com/)
Aims to show the maximum achievable compression ratio for several
filetypes (text, executable). The best 120+ programs for every filetype
are shown in a table indicating compression ratio and switches/options
used to achieve that compression.

 

[Demetris]

Demetris,

Why not join DonationCoder and tell them where they could improve? I had
reservations about the test and don't think there is a "best" archiver
anyway, because different people have different tradeoffs os speed and
size, and other things. However, I think the author gave a bit more
details about his test data set in the DonationCoder forums.

Hello, Hengist,

I did that (pointed out some of the problems of the review) but not at
the DonationCoder forum. See the reviewer's replies (he is zridling, I
am demetrisk):

http://fileforum.betanews.com/review/951078804/1/view

I don't know about the webmaster of DonationCoder, or the members of
DonationCoder, but it seems to me that this reviewer is not interested
in writing an objective (or, at least, not misleading) review.

Of DonationCoder reviews in general, my opinion is not very high. I
think they serve mostly as a self-promotional trick for the site: "We
tested the best programs in this category and obtained a discount for
our members from the company of the winner". (Not a direct quote, but I
believe I am not misrepresenting the general idea) -- this is not a very
strong motive to review a category where cost-free programs clearly are
the best (e.g., browsers), or to proclaim a cost-free winner in a
category with strong competition between commercial and non-commercial
software!

But even for commercial winners, not all companies seem to care about
the DC awards, which can lead to unpleasant situations.

Posted in red bold letters in their review of image viewers/editors:

\beginquote

NOTE: After many aborted attempts to discuss the possibility of a
discount with ACDSee, we have come to the conclusion that their customer
service and public relations department is disfunctional. Our emails to
ACDSee were repeatedly ignored, even despite the best attempts by one
responsible person in their beta testing department to get someone to
handle the issue.

This has caused us to have serious reservations about recommending that
you purchase any software from ACDSee.

We dislike having to say bad things about companies, especially those
whose products are as impressive as ACDSee. But having a good product is
not enough - you must also demonstrate some competence at handling
customer service issues. While we will not withdraw our award for best
Graphic Management Tool, at this point we think your money would be
better spent on a company that has a little higher regard for customer
interaction.

\endquote

Greetings,
Demetris

 

[mymouser]

Hi all.

I am the "webmaster" of donationcoder.com so i thought maybe i'd make a
quick post to clear up some stuff and answer any questions if people
have any.

First, we have tried hard to do the most comprehensive serious reviews
you can find on the web. You might not agree with our opinions but
please understand we have tried our very best to not just present fair
reviews, but to present the longest and most in depth reviews you can
find anywhere.
You can read a little bit more about the approach we have taken to
reviewing here: http://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/index.html

Secondly, we made a decision early on when we started our site that
rather than reviewing a particular app each time, we would pick an
entire category and try to identify the best commercial and freeware
tools in that category. we knew that would be hard and lead to
controversial decisions, but we did not anticipate exactly how hard and
controversial that would be, and how much work it would be to review
entire large categories. We will think however that it offers a useful
and *different* service to people like us who are generally overwhelmed
with choices.

It's very hard to review an entire category and we always miss things
and dissapoint people who feel like we gave short shrift to their
favorite app. it's just unavoidable. but that's why we are so open to
discussion and dissent on our forum, and set up a section for each
review.

if you visit the section set up for the archive review, you will find
that we actually had discussions on the forum with authors of several
other archiving tools, and the approach on our forum is always
constructive, and we are a real community interested in connecting
coders with serious users who appreciate good software. and we
encourage debate and dissagreement with our reviews.
http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?board=56.0

lastly, about the reviews being a "self-promotional trick"..

the donationcoder.com website has no ads.
we sell no services.
we get no commissions on sales/discounts.

*after* we do a review and identify the best commercial + freeware
apps,+ we always contact the winning company and ask for a substantial
discount for our members. we get no commission on these discounts, but
we try to convince companies that the discount is in their best
interest and in the interest of our readers. if they do not offer a
discount, it does not effect the already written review in the
slightest. occasionally we find that a company is totally
irresponsible about answering our emails (and by this i do not mean
ignoring emails; i mean much worse behavior). when that happens we
tell our readers about it. we have had several discussions in the
forum about whether our members want to hear about such things -
overwhelmingly the answer is yes, because much of our site is about
recognizing and rewarding "good" companies and avoiding "bad" ones.

by the way, the archive review, one of our best reviews, imho, was
written as a guest review by one of ourthe members on our forum, who
spent a huge amount of time on it and got NOTHING in return - he simply
did it as a favor to the site, and as a gesture of good will.

note also that donationcoder.com has somewhere between 20-40 freeware
programs developed by us and our friends on the site. not a single one
is shareware. they are all freeware/donationware.

the site is entirely 100% funded by voluntary donations from people who
like our site, our software, and our reviews. users can (and do) join
our site as lifetime charter members with a single donation as low as
$1.

users need not ever donate/join the site as official members - our
programs and content remain accessible and free regardless. but we
have struggled to provide some incentives to making a donation, and we
still struggle to find a generous and appropriate way to do this, which
makes everyone happy.

it's a strange site because we are combining a bunch of things,
reviews, our own software, a very active forum discussing shareware and
freeware.

i'm not a big fan of capitalism, and the donationcoder.com site is
trying to be an example of the idea that a donation-based approach can
work.

i ask only that you look around our forum and read up a little about
the site and what we are trying to do. we really are trying to be good
citizens.

i'd be happy to answer any other questions, here or on our forums, and
i invite anyone to have a look around our site and forums if you want
to find out what we are all about..

-mouser

 

[John Fitzsimons]

Hi all.

I am the "webmaster" of donationcoder.com so i thought maybe i'd make a
quick post to clear up some stuff and answer any questions if people
have any.

You can read a little bit more about the approach we have taken to
reviewing here: http://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/index.html

< snip >

Wow ! That is a lot of effort to go to to clarify things. I am sure
that a number of people here will appreciate you taking the time to do
that. I hope that things work out well for you.

I have a few ideas for you to think about. Some of us hate web forums.
Perhaps you could consider adding a mailing list and/or NNTP server
option ?

Lastly, next time you are thinking of coding something new then
perhaps you could consider two requests that I made here recently ?

(1) A GUI way to do a spell check of all .html files in a directory. A
way to open the files and then close any that don't need spelling
corrections. Leaving behind those that do.

(2) A win '98SE "registry defragmenter" or "registry compressor".

Hope that helps you.

Regards, John.
--
****************************************************
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/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/~johnf/welcome.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/

 

[mymouser]

john:

someone on our forum suggested something similar, asking if there
wasn't a way to maybe have the forum software be able to be interfaced
as a newsreader or email mailing list.. we use the open source
simplemachines.org forum software, and while it is excellent, there
currently isnt a perfect way to do this. there is support for rss
feeds, but of course that doesn't help with posting, etc. we will keep
looking into the possibility of an addon to the forum that would let it
do this though. (i've run some newsgroups in the past for academia and
i know enough to know that trying to create a separate independent
newsgroup/mailing list for our site would be a nightmare of parallel
questions/suggestions/etc).

regarding your program ideas:
we have a special section of our forum called "coding snacks" where
people request small programs and we try to have programmers come and
implement them as freeware. your requests are probably a bit more than
coding snacks but thought i would mention it because we actively
encourage people to think of small utilities that we can code (as
freeware of course):
http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?board=31.0

actually your idea about a utility to help spell checking a tons of
files and closing those that don't need spellchecking is quite useful..
i wonder if some way could be found to do that with a scripting tool
and an existing program capable of spell checking html files.. i'm not
sure.

 

[John Fitzsimons]

On 5 Oct 2005 17:58:03 -0700, (e-mail address removed) wrote:

Hi mouser,

I notice that your introduction line seems to be missing. Perhaps your
newsreader is broken ?

Not having .......

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 09:52:26 +1000, John Fitzsimons

meant that I almost missed your reply. I often don't sort by thread
and there are a number of "John's" here !

someone on our forum suggested something similar, asking if there
wasn't a way to maybe have the forum software be able to be interfaced
as a newsreader

Sourceforge managed this....for a time. Unfortunately they stopped it
after a while.

or email mailing list.. we use the open source
simplemachines.org forum software, and while it is excellent, there
currently isnt a perfect way to do this. there is support for rss
feeds, but of course that doesn't help with posting, etc. we will keep
looking into the possibility of an addon to the forum that would let it
do this though. (i've run some newsgroups in the past for academia and
i know enough to know that trying to create a separate independent
newsgroup/mailing list for our site would be a nightmare of parallel
questions/suggestions/etc).

Your choice. Newsgroups/mailing lists have repeat questions anyway so
I wouldn't see duplication as much of a problem. As it is now you are
probably missing out on a number of people, like myself, who don't
want to sign up for their 2,349 th web forum.

regarding your program ideas:
we have a special section of our forum called "coding snacks" where
people request small programs and we try to have programmers come and
implement them as freeware. your requests are probably a bit more than
coding snacks but thought i would mention it because we actively
encourage people to think of small utilities that we can code (as
freeware of course):
http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?board=31.0

Thanks, if I decide to add 2,349 I will keep that in mind.

actually your idea about a utility to help spell checking a tons of
files and closing those that don't need spellchecking is quite useful..
i wonder if some way could be found to do that with a scripting tool
and an existing program capable of spell checking html files.. i'm not
sure.

I was thinking the same thing. I don't however know enough about
scripting to know how to do that. One of the people here managed to
get Emacs to do what I want but Emacs is complicated, and I can never
remember the steps required, so I was wanting a "set and forget"
method that wouldn't require me to remember a whole pile of
complicated steps.

Regards, John.