The focus of this article is to compare some of the most popular (and most effective) compression software packages available to the general public.  I will not be going into depth on algorithm comparison, however, so the article is aimed more towards casual computer users than algorithm developers in particular.

For this study, the following software were used: WinZip (9.0 SR-1), PeaZip (2.5.1), 7-Zip (4.65), NanoZip (0.06 Alpha), WinRAR (3.80) and GNU Tar (1.21).  The computer that did the processing had the following specifications: Intel Core 2 Duo (2.33GHz), 2GB RAM, Windows XP Pro SP3.  In order to perform the study, I needed some test data to compress.  I used a group of ~2500 files (143MB) that had a nice mix of source code/text files, object files, images, RTFs and compressed files.  Please note that my results are for the platform and data I used and your mileage will vary (especially processing time, obviously).

Software Summaries

WinZip: This is certainly the most popular of the programs I tested, but it also costs money (and if you read my article on ‘Good Software’, then you know how much I hate price tags on software).  Newer versions of WinZip give the option of spanning a file across multiple chunks, and the ability to encrypt the files individually.  Unfortunately, it only allows you to compress into the ZIP archive format.  The interface is very clean and intuitive.

PeaZip: This software is free, and has a pretty nice interface.  The interface seems a bit quirky at times, especially the compression dialog.  It provides the options to encrypt and span across files (break it into multiple volumes).  It also gives you the ability to pack the file into 12 different formats, plus allows you to specify your own format (by calling an external program you specify to handle it all).  Most formats also allow you to choose a particular compression algorithm you want to use, along with various settings to tweak the performance (including thread settings).  BZ2, in particular, is highly threaded.

7-Zip: Another great, and free, program.  7-Zip allows packing files into your choice of 5 formats, most of which allow you to choose custom settings to tweak performance (including thread settings).  Once again, BZ2 is highly threaded.  Encryption is also available for 7Z and ZIP formats.  Spanning across multiple files (split into volumes) is also an option in this program.  It supports a very wide variety of formats (for extraction mostly).

NanoZip: NanoZip is still in Alpha testing, and so it is missing lots of features (which is to be expected).  For that reason, I couldn’t recommend it for everyday use, but it is definitely a program to keep an eye on.  It provides the option of compressing into the NZ (NanoZip) format using your choice of 7 different compression algorithms.  The downside is that only NanoZip supports the NZ format (that I know of).

WinRAR: This program is not free, and uses its own proprietary archive format (RAR).  The interface is relatively nice, and provides the options of encryption and spanning.  It is famed to have the most efficient compression (esp. with multimedia) and is growing in its user base.

“When it comes right down to it, there’s one main reason that Microsoft is in the position they’re in today — their businessmen.  It certainly isn’t their software, and there’s no way that it’s their executive charm (although Steve Ballmer does seem to have an awkward boyish glow at times).  One might even go so far as to say that Microsoft itself would not be here today if not for their business guys.  It seems that Microsoft is more of a company that sells software, not a software company.  For the majority of their products, they will typically buy other peoples’ software out, load it full of MS logos and slap a price tag on it.  They never do anything innovative, and rarely ever come up with any software ideas on their own.  As stated before:  Microsoft is a company that sells software … not a software development company.”

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In case you weren’t aware, any computers in the world that work with important information and services run on open-source software (because Microsoft is a health risk for computers). If user-friendliness isn’t a high priority then no one should be stupid enough to run Windows on the computer, and that’s why critical systems are increasingly switching to open-source alternatives.

Through this govt. funding, which they dubbed the “Vulnerability Discovery and Remediation, Open Source Hardening Project”, Stanford and Coverity will create and maintain a system designed to scan various open-source programs on a daily basis, adding any bugs found to a database that will be open to developers.

Three questions popped into my head when I first heard about this:

1. Did they fire the guy that came up with those cool program names, like Operation Desert Storm?
2. What in the world does Symantec know about open-source security?
3. Why aren’t they doing this for Microsoft products?

Although I can’t comment on the first question, the other two have pretty quick answers.

2. Absolutely nothing, except perhaps lying about OS security to make people think they actually need *Nix AntiVirus 2010.
3. They refuse to let others see their God-like source code for fear people will find out it’s written in QBASIC.

Ignoring the fact that they’re wasting $100,000 on Symantec, this is great news in every other aspect. Some of the many software that will be scanned include: Apache, Firefox, FreeBSD, Gimp, Linux, MySQL, OpenBSD, and Samba. Personally I’m pretty excited to find out how many bugs they can find in FreeBSD and OpenBSD — very few I’m sure. Helping secure products that are already seen as the most secure in their class … how much better can it get?

For those of us who play with computers recreationally, we know how gorgeous a rootkit is on someone’s computer (especially if we don’t like the person). If the rootkit is put onto a system with system-level permissions it can run as a kernel-mode rootkit, which has the power to do absolutely anything that it wants — including almost completely hiding itself from sight. If someone can grab ahold of the reigns on this rootkit, they can have complete control over your computer without you even knowing it.

For those who are less familiar with computers, I think Sony BMG president (Thomas Hesse) said it best when he retorted, “Most people don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?” Thank you, sir! I needed some new quotes to go with my good Bill Gates ones =).

After Sony got caught in the act they seemed not to really care; at least they offered replacements and pulled the disks. They also released a patch for the rootkit, but it just made everything worse and could potentially crash Windows. Much, much later they eventually released an uninstaller to the general public.

Apparently Sony thinks they can break laws and no one will care; they’re the poor victims of copyright infringement, right? If Sony had any respect left for them before, they pretty much lost it after they tried to sneak their little rootkits into their disks. Sony is probably the biggest group of hypocritical, imbecilic old-timers that exists in today’s world; their unprofitable, outdated business model is going to be the death of them in coming years if they can’t learn to adapt to the changing digital world.

For some reason they think it is a good idea to spend millions of dollars developing Digital Rights Management schemes that can be quickly circumvented by preteens. It’s physically impossible to stop people from ripping disks and sharing them, especially when there’s something out there called Linux.

I personally think it would be the most enjoyable faux pas of the new millennium to see Sony spend itself into bankruptcy trying to protect their music. They don’t seem to be very bright, so I think it’s very possible … let’s just wait and see.

[update: 2006-01-04] Stewart Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, bashes Sony BMG: “It’s very important to remember that it’s your intellectual property — it’s not your computer. And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it’s important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days.”

Also, I thought it would be funny to mention that Sony BMG is not only facing numerous lawsuits in the US, but also in Italy and Canada. Italy is currently undergoing an investigation to charge Sony BMG with criminal offenses, as well.

“As I always say, there’s only one type of software that is worth actually spending money on … one that requires a subscription (constant updates) to function well; no one should ever pay for any other kind of software. Any software that is worth using was created recreationally by real programmers that are just doing what they love, and software like that never has a price tag. Not to say, however, that programmers should never get paid for their work; if a company comes to you wanting you to take time out of your schedule to do work for them then they’d better do something for you in return.”

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