file compressor

[Maxheadroom]

whats a good file compressor 64 bit preferably, ive got some big files that i dont use too often and wouldn't mind shrinking them down to save space.
thanks

 

[pillainp]

7Zip is free and its available in both 32 and 64-bit.

WinRAR is a good paid alternative. Version 3.90 comes in both 32 and 64-bit.

 

[thefabe]

Here is a list of, and reviews on the top 10 file compression software applications of 2009. Fabe File Compression Software Review 2009 - TopTenREVIEWS

 

[Maxheadroom]

thanks, back to winrar again

 

[thefabe]

Your welcome. Fabe

 

[Qdos]

I've always used WinRAR, but just don't understand why any half-decent reviewer would rank WinZIP above WinRAR as in the link above...

 

[reminiscence]

my vote goes for 7zip. It can compress things in the superior LZMA format (with the .7z extention), and can also open RAR files so there's no worries in terms of what you can open with it. No dialogs nagging you to buy the software, lightweight and clean interface, very VERY easy to use, and of course runs on 64 bit natively.

 

[pillainp]

Here is a list of, and reviews on the top 10 file compression software applications of 2009. Fabe File Compression Software Review 2009 - TopTenREVIEWS

It struck me as very strange indeed that this review says 7Zip cannot create self-extracting archives. It does that very handily.

I myself use 7Zip and WinRAR both, interchangeably. They are both very good at what they do. 7Zip though has the advantage that it is free.

 

[Maxheadroom]

how is the compression and speed of compression of 7z compared to winrar?
is there much in it?
thanks

 

[pillainp]

Haven't had the time to do a head to head comparison yet, but I use them both regularly. They are both pretty fast at common tasks, and light.

WinRAR does have an advantage in that it can integrate with your virus scanner, so that you can scan archives from within WinRAR itself.

However, 7Zip is free.

 

[reminiscence]

word out in the street says that 7zip is better in terms of compression, by a slight margin. The LZMA algorithm is actually freely available as a SDK and many programs incorporate it in their I/O. That's another reason why I like it.

In terms of speed, as far as my experience goes, are also pretty similar. They're actually both very slow compared to the older ones like zip, for a good reason- PC's are much more fast and therefore can handle the extra thinking.

What I know about 7zip is that it takes a LOT of memory to compress things (i think in the magnitude of ~500 MB) but about a tenth of that when decompressing.

The WinRAR decoding algorithm is only available freely (and with certain restrictions), however, and I don't favor it as much as someone offering the whole thing.

In terms of functionality though, both programs do their job flawlessly. It won't hurt to have both programs installed actually, although it would be redundant.

 

[Maxheadroom]

i had a little test myself with nearly a 1gb file
7zip's compression was slightly better than winrar but took slightly longer
so on ballance there very very close to each other, except of course one is free

 

[pparks1]

I know this thread is a bit old, but I did some testing with 7zip today as I was evaluating some third party accelerator appliances and thought that I would share my results.

I compared the speed between WinRAR 3.93 64-bit versus 7-zip 4.65 64-bit.
I used a SQL database backup file, which was 3,668,050KB for my testing...so highly compressible.


WinRAR results

• At Normal compression, took 4:31 to compress and resulted in 443,564KB file
• At Best compression, took 7:06 to compress and resulted in 420,922KB file
• At Fastest compression, took 1:05 to compress and resulted in 641,845KB file

7zip results

• At normal compression, took 14:18 to compress and resulted in 363,480KB file
• At fast compression, took 2:46 to compress and resulted in 461,324KB file
• At fastest compression, took 2:17 to compress and resulted in 483,733KB file.

So, i personally feel that 7zip at Fast Compression is the best of the mix. It's time is very competitive and the file size is smaller.


Worth mentioning was that WinRAR took about 75-90% CPU, running about 35MB of RAM to run the tests....while 7zip was using about 48-52% of the CPU and using about 10MB of RAM.

Finally, WINRAR costs money and 7zip is free (even for commercial use).

My vote goes to 7zip.

 

[Maxheadroom]

thanks for sharing that pparks1
on your 7zip at normal compression youve got it took 14:18 is that right or was it meant to be 4:18?
is there any file types that winrar does that 7zip wont?