What is better: an experiment with winrar winzip and 7zip

[coolioWiZ]

What is better WinZip, WinRar or 7Zip.

I did a test for compression ratios and time taken by archiving the same set of files with all 3 programs and measuring the time taken to compress and compressed size.

The computer used was a laptop with following specifications:
Intel Centrino Duo 1.83GHz
1GB DDR2 RAM

The folder used for the test:
contents: several pdf documents
size: 101MB

The compression ratio was calculated as the disk space saved, ie:

Compression Ratio(Space Saved) = 1 - Compressed Size / Uncompressed Size
The higher percentage means better compression

WinZip 11.0
============

Test 1
-------
compression: optimize for maximum compression
time to compress: 2 min 03 sec
compressed size: 84.1MB
compression ratio: 16.73%

Test 2
-------
compression: bzip format
time to compress: 38 sec
compressed size: 86.1MB
compression ratio: 14.75%

WinRar 3.70
============

Test 1
-------
compression: rar format
dictionary size: 4MB
time to compress: 57 sec
compressed size: 85.4MB
compression ratio: 15.45%

Test 2
-------
compression: zip format
time to compress: 12 sec
compressed size: 87.5MB
compression ratio: 13.37%

7Zip 4.52 beta
===========

Test 1
-------
archive format: 7z format
compression method: LZMA
dictionary size: 16MB
word size: 32
CPU Threads: 2/2
time to compress: 42 sec
compressed size: 84.8MB
compression ratio: 16.04%

Test 2
-------
archive format: zip format
compression method: Deflate
dictionary size: 32KB
word size: 32
CPU Threads: 2/2
time to compress: 10 sec
compressed size: 87.5MB
compression ratio: 13.37%

Test 3
-------
archive format: zip format
compression method: bzip2
dictionary size: 900KB
CPU Threads: 2/2
time to compress: 29 sec
compressed size: 86.1MB
compression ratio: 14.75%


Conclusion (for zip format)
=============

WinZip with optimization (zip format) takes 2 min 03 sec gives compression of 16.73%
WinRar (zip format) takes 12 sec gives compression of 13.37%
7Zip (zip format) takes 10 sec gives compression of 13.37%

Comparing overall 7Zip gives better performance with time and WinZip performs better on compressing but takes too much time.


C'mon guys give your ideas.

 

[Anusha]

I removed WinRAR. Don't wanna install it again

Still, with some files, the split RAR archive issue is there with 7-zip

 

[coolioWiZ]

I still haven't ecountered a splitted rar which couldn't be uncompressed with 7zip. Maybe it's due to that I give priority to winrar when working with rar archives.

I think I can safely remove winzip, but I'll not be able to remove winrar if there is a problem with extracing splitted archives in 7zip. coz most of the important files on the internet (torrents ) comes as rar archives. I'd like to keep one program for all archives.

There is another option floating around.
http://www.izarc.org/
It can open many formats from 7z to rar also CD images. But I'm not sure about it's archive making abilties

 

[Anusha]

I still haven't ecountered a splitted rar which couldn't be uncompressed with 7zip. Maybe it's due to that I give priority to winrar when working with rar archives.

I think I can safely remove winzip, but I'll not be able to remove winrar if there is a problem with extracing splitted archives in 7zip. coz most of the important files on the internet (torrents ) comes as rar archives. I'd like to keep one program for all archives.

There is another option floating around.
http://www.izarc.org/
It can open many formats from 7z to rar also CD images. But I'm not sure about it's archive making abilties

But 7-zip gets a lot of points for its 64bit-ness.

 

[coolioWiZ]

I think so

I'm not sure about the performace of IZarc and the types of archives it can create, I only considered that it can open a lots of formats.

I like 7zip for the fact that it's opensource and gives better compression options, they could work about the gui, but it's not much of a matter. If I want a single archiver for all formats I dearly want it to be 7zip.

I've lived with countless linux distros which give you a zillion of programs for a single task and none could do it better.
eg: wordprocessing ----> abiword,openoffice writer, KOffice's wordprocessor.
It's worse with music ---> amarok,mplayer,xine,xmms,banshee and more

So a single program which excells at a given task is important to me, I'll take 7zip for archiving if I just could seperate from winrar.

 

[coolioWiZ]

Maniac compressors

http://www.klaimsoft.com/winuha/
http://www.msoftware.co.nz/WinRK_about.php
http://kgbarchiver.net/
I need to test these programs

Longhorn (circa 2005) iso compressed to 2.2MB
http://www.esnips.com/doc/2799928f-1924-4369-844e-84dce74f7693/Full_Longhorn.zip
I can't believe how this was achieved, or which the program used to do that.

More info about unbelievable compressions, programs to achive 99% compression ratios (under extreme test conditions)
http://www.maximumcompression.com/

 

[mkranga]

Maniac compressors

http://www.klaimsoft.com/winuha/
http://www.msoftware.co.nz/WinRK_about.php
http://kgbarchiver.net/
I need to test these programs

Longhorn (circa 2005) iso compressed to 2.2MB
http://www.esnips.com/doc/2799928f-1924-4369-844e-84dce74f7693/Full_Longhorn.zip
I can't believe how this was achieved, or which the program used to do that.

More info about unbelievable compressions, programs to achive 99% compression ratios (under extreme test conditions)
http://www.maximumcompression.com/

Uha is good but no GUI (till gazali show it)

 

[coolioWiZ]

Uha is good but no GUI (till gazali show it)

Try KGB archiver or WinRK that's going to blow you.

 

[Anusha]

Try KGB archiver or WinRK that's going to blow you.

That's gonna blow his PC, if it doesn't blow him before that

 

[mkranga]

i herd & used Uha but not other.

 

[madurax86]

try winUHARC

 

[madurax86]

try winUHA RC1 2005 release

 

[Anusha]

try winUHA RC1 2005 release

It was the slowest of them all, even though it resulted with a little better compression ratio. But the time it too for that is too much to justify it. 100s+ compared to 3-4s of 7-zip (Zip format, normal compression)

 

[mkranga]

It was the slowest of them all, even though it resulted with a little better compression ratio. But the time it too for that is too much to justify it. 100s+ compared to 3-4s of 7-zip (Zip format, normal compression)

if u have big cash mem its not a big deal.

some times we need more than we have. thats why uha is still there.

 

[coolioWiZ]

That's gonna blow his PC, if it doesn't blow him before that

 

[coolioWiZ]

if u have big cash mem its not a big deal.

some times we need more than we have. thats why uha is still there.

I don't think cache is a problem, Mainly it's processing power and RAM.
Also primary memory comes as registers in the processor, the cache, and RAM. On that line you can say that the processor registers are also "important".


Some compression algorithms are designed with the compression ratio in mind, they doesn't consider about the user friendliness or computer resources used. They are used as a testbed for testing extreme limits of data compression. From them you can't hope for less compression times. Or for the fact user friendly GUIs, see most including "uha" are commandline.

You can't whine about using too much resources when using these programs, they are designed hoping you have enough processing power to handle them without blowing your PC to the moon

WinZip, WinRar and 7Zip are general purpose compression programs trying to balance the compression ratio and time taken, so resulting in a program anybody can use.

 

[Anusha]

if u have big cash mem its not a big deal.

some times we need more than we have. thats why uha is still there.

My CPU only has ~2MB cache.

And I don't agree with your other statement. "some times we need more than we have. thats why uha is still there." Hell no!!! ALWAYS we need more than what we have.

 

[Anusha]

I don't think cache is a problem, Mainly it's processing power and RAM.
Also primary memory comes as registers in the processor, the cache, and RAM. On that line you can say that the processor registers are also "important".

Without registers, CPUs won't be there. Not so with cache. Cache it just to speedup the fetching of data and instructions to be processed by the CPU using the locality of reference factor. CPU has no clue as to the existence or the size of the cache.

Anyways...registers are not important in this case, because every CPU has registers that is enough to do what it is supposed to do (except certain RISC architecture CPUs which can create register stacks instead of memory stacks for instruction stacking)

I would like to compare 7-zip performance with a Conroe CPU running at my specs. Mine is a Conroe-2M.

 

[coolioWiZ]

My CPU only has ~2MB cache.

And I don't agree with your other statement. "some times we need more than we have. thats why uha is still there." Hell no!!! ALWAYS we need more than what we have.

That's true, we always want more.

Even cats agree:

Our computer hardware gets better day by day. To match it our software (OS, games, packages) ask for more resources. So we are constantly in a thrist for more speed, more power.
Also having extra resources is better than having only the required minimum. Maybe supercomputer power for our desktops will be affordable in the near future.

 

[Anusha]

That's true, we always want more.

Even cats agree:

Our computer hardware gets better day by day. To match it our software (OS, games, packages) ask for more resources. So we are constantly in a thrist for more speed, more power.
Also having extra resources is better than having only the required minimum. Maybe supercomputer power for our desktops will be affordable in the near future.

We will have the power of 1 teraflop within 3 years I think. The 80-core Intel behemoth What's amazing is how it uses less power than a contemporary Core 2 Duo at full load. This is 80 * 3.2GHz !!!