[weasel]

Why all the RAR hate? Most good compression programs work fine with RAR, including 7-Zip which is free. I haven't seen any legitimate reasons for somebody to stick with ZIP at all.

[LogiCow]

Zip files are handled natively by windows XP and I assume vista. The convenience is worth the slightly larger file sizes.

RAR files need some third party applications to decompress. 7-Zip's interface under Windows is bad enough that I want to avoid using it whenever possible.

[Frobozz]

Zip files are handled natively on Windows starting with ME. Rar files are evil. Also Logicow, that's sad you can't figure out 7-Zip. Although I just use the right-click menu and avoid the UI itself.

This post has been edited by Frobozz: 01 August 2007 - 03:05 AM

[Dr Lancer-X]

Let's have a look at some common archiving formats, and why they are/aren't sux:

ZIP:

- Wide platform support
- Relatively poor compression (inefficient deflate, all the other widely supported zip methods are sux)

conclusion: not bad at all--offers plenty of compression, works everywhere, why not?

RAR:

- Reasonably good compression
- Proprietary encoder
- Proprietary decoder so you'll probably end up using a decent tool like 7zip ANYWAY for decoding it

conclusion: sux

7Z:

- Excellent compression, beats RAR
- Free encoder
- Free decoder

conclusion: freaking awesome BUT i'd still use zip because it has the better platform support and pfft most of us have real internet connections

TAR.BZ2:

- Reasonably excellent compression
- Excellent platform support for encoding and decoding, supported by any decent software (can be created and opened with the aforementioned 7zip)

conclusion: great, but MZXers are a bunch of crappy *nixphobes so i'd still use zip over this

Quote

7-Zip's interface under Windows is bad enough that I want to avoid using it whenever possible.

You are mistaken. I use it full-time as my only archiving software under Windows (and have been doing so for several years now) and it works wonderfully for everything. The interface certainly beats winrar, winace, winzip, powerarchiver and every other archiving tool I've used under Windows hands down.

[Frobozz]

The proprietary nature of RAR is the main reason why I avoid it. I try to spread 7-zip as much as possible.

[CJA]

Lancer-X, on Aug 1 2007, 01:38 AM, said:

Quote

7-Zip's interface under Windows is bad enough that I want to avoid using it whenever possible.

You are mistaken. I use it full-time as my only archiving software under Windows (and have been doing so for several years now) and it works wonderfully for everything. The interface certainly beats winrar, winace, winzip, powerarchiver and every other archiving tool I've used under Windows hands down.

About 7-zip: You seriously can choose things like "Extract files to subdir/" and "Add these files to folder.rar" right from the Explorer right click menu with 7-zip? If so you have me sold and somehow I forgot to see it on my first pass with 7-zip.

WinRAR may be somewhat-bloated nagware, but man it's soooo convenient and the archives work like folders. I can stand a nag prompt when I don't have to be prompted on three other occasions and you can do stuff without dragging the program out.


About 7z: It wouldn't let me add files to an existing 7z archive. I don't CARE if that's just a side-effect of the wonderful panacea archive format--I'm definitely NOT going to rebuild the archive each time. Especially when mostly I'm just dragging things to archives to update them.

asgromo tried to convert me and it failed.

Dude but if someone made a mock WinRAR and it MADE 7z I'd switch in a heartbeat!!

If I am not seeing something here please point it out because I'd like nothing better than to find some way to make 7-zip usable for myself... asgromo will also have a heated discussion waiting for me on IRC so maybe we'll post the results of that.


Until then, I'll use ZIP.

oh god sorry for the long post =(

[ajs]

When I last used 7zip, it had right click menu integration as you describe.

Plus, there's nothing about the 7zip format that would prevent efficiently updating a 7z file. The command line utility here has an "update" option, so it must be possible.

I suggest you just try it out? It's free software and it's not a big download.

BTW I agree that WinRAR has an excellent interface. But they're still trying to extort money out of us, even though the program is dead!

Respect, Roshal!



--ajs.

[CJA]

Okay, wow, I guess I really will try it again

[Dr Lancer-X]

CJA, on Aug 2 2007, 03:22 AM, said:

About 7z: It wouldn't let me add files to an existing 7z archive. I don't CARE if that's just a side-effect of the wonderful panacea archive format--I'm definitely NOT going to rebuild the archive each time. Especially when mostly I'm just dragging things to archives to update them.

listen m8 who gives a crap about the 7z format anyway? see i don't even know if this is true or not because i don't ever use the 7z format.

that's the thing, 7zip comes with builtin support for this freaking awesome format but the 7zip program is so awesome that i don't even care about the format. just use this thing for creating zips

[hob nado]

I can't believe this turned into an argument about zip files; we need Dr. Karate to deliver some chops on this case posthaste

I program for a living and I say go out and watch a sunset instead of arguing about compression algorithms =(

Edit: Although, 7-Zip is pretty neat =)

[Elig]

Esdemo1, on Aug 1 2007, 11:28 PM, said:

I can't believe this turned into an argument about zip files; we need Dr. Karate to deliver some chops on this case posthaste

I program for a living and I say go out and watch a sunset instead of arguing about compression algorithms =(

Edit: Although, 7-Zip is pretty neat =)

Es speaks the truth. I would say something, but Es has already said exactly what I would have said better than I could have said it.

[Risu2112]

This is the most successful I have ever been at derailing a thread...

[Sai'ke]

[ajs]

Risu2112, on Aug 2 2007, 05:55 PM, said:

This is the most successful I have ever been at derailing a thread... :(

I think it was my Roshal picture that did it, personally.

--ajs.

[Lachesis]

Tell me if I'm wrong, but last I checked 7z isn't that useful for anything other than many similar files, like sets of rom dumps.

[ajs]

You're wrong.

--ajs.

[ThDPro]

3.

3 comments relevant to the topic out of 26.

Huh

[Frobozz]

@Guy: When I found out it wasn't even really playable, I just skipped rapidly through and quit.

ajs said:

You're wrong.

A man of few words, ajs can never be accused of not coming directly to the point or speaking his mind.

This post has been edited by Frobozz: 02 August 2007 - 10:18 PM

[Val]

Frobozz, on Aug 2 2007, 06:16 PM, said:

@Guy: When I found out it wasn't even really playable, I just skipped rapidly through and quit.

wh...what are you talking about

i have not posted once before this in this topic!

besides which, that is a horrible, horrible attitude to take. you sound like a huge jerk!

This post has been edited by Guy: 02 August 2007 - 10:29 PM

[CJA]

Frobozz said:

A man of few words, ajs can never be accused of not coming directly to the point or speaking his mind.

Frobozz said:

@Guy: When I found out it wasn't even really playable, I just skipped rapidly through and quit.

pot calls kettle black

[Frobozz]

Guy said:

i have not posted once before this in this topic!

Heh funny. I thought I had gone back and changed it to CJA. Guess I missed it after all.

This post has been edited by Frobozz: 03 August 2007 - 12:19 AM

[Terryn]

7-zip can pull off the plain zip format at about 5% tighter compression than many other archivers, which is why I use it to compress the zips in the archive (and what I used even in Antiarchive days).

RAR often has had better compression on the CDs I've imaged, but 7z does better on many things (especially packs of similar files). 7-zip makes some very good self-extracting archives too. DGCA compresses marginally better than both, in my practise, but it is both 1) hella slow; 2) not used much at all!

ANYWAY

[Exophase]

Seems to me both the 7zip and RAR compression algorithms are still being developed. Of course, WinRAR supports 7z and vice-versa. I don't mind RAR at all, and aside from the nag screen (which you don't get if you use it via explorer either) I do like WinRAR's interface the most. But when I have to create something I prefer tar.bz2 or tar.gz, because it's the easiest for me to make via command line right now.

[commodorejohn]

I don't like 7-zip because the installer didn't make the file association work right; I have to use the command line to get it to work.

[Dr Lancer-X]

7-zip's installer got it right for me. It might have been your existing associations and (more likely) shell/rightclick extensions that got in the way

[ajs]

Alright, to clarify..

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with 7zip's LZMA that makes it useful only for "lots of similar files." An ideal algorithm would be adaptive, like RAR/ACE, for example, but there's nothing wrong with simplicity. 7zip's strength comes from extremely rapid decompression and low system requirements. RAR is also excellent for these. ACE is not so much (does anybody still use this).

In my opinion, 7zip should replace zip, gzip and bzip2. It's almost as fast a gzip to decompress, achieves better size than bzip2 (because it is just a superior technique) and nobody cares that much about compression time (which 7zip offers many levels of customisation for).

RAR, on the other hand, still wins in many aspects. It has the best redundancy features of any algorithm, bar none. If you split files, like in scene rips, you will be able to lose a whole part and the file will still extract. This is unrivalled. RAR is slow to compress, but not unbearably. But it's not free and WinRAR isn't the best software on earth.

I suggest people actually try compressing things with 7zip. It'll beat ZIP/bzip2 always, and probably rival RAR in most test cases. This should dispel any FUD surrounding it being too specifically useful for "many similar files".

--ajs.

[commodorejohn]

Lancer-X, on Aug 3 2007, 01:46 PM, said:

7-zip's installer got it right for me. It might have been your existing associations and (more likely) shell/rightclick extensions that got in the way

Well, I had no associations for .7z files, and it didn't get those right...

[Dr Lancer-X]

ajs, on Aug 4 2007, 12:18 AM, said:

and nobody cares that much about compression time

actually, I do care about compression time quite a bit! not for small files destined for the web, but for large files destined to take up less space on my harddrive/backup media. if I want to compress something down that takes a few gigabytes, like a harddrive, i find gzip to be pretty much optimal in terms of compression efficiency at those rates

for everything else, sure, but I don't really use 7z much because I don't feel that people universally know what this format is when they look at it (yet), unlike zip, and the transfer time saved usually isn't much of a bother (for 50mb+ files, the savings would probably be worth it, though)

[Aussie Evil]

Thank god we've all abandonded .hqx and .sit files.

[paulguy]

The thing i dislike about .rar is that I haven't had much luck with it in linux. The free unrarers tend to have problems with certain .rar files and I haven't had too much luck running the official one. Luckily, I think it was Insidious sent me his binary which worked fine. Don't know why the rar-labs one didn't run. Said something about some library or something.