What's your favorite archive format(s)?

[909mjolnir]

Inspired by the recent discussion about dd and ISO's, I'm wondering what are your favorite archive formats?

* for general purpose archiving of directories and files...

Personally, I like .tar.lzma (.tlz) for directories and files at this stage in my life, even if it's Windows EXE's and stuff.
What about you guys? What do you like?

 

[Alexandriteia]

7-Zip, because it supports password protection and multi-volume archives; none of the 10 other options available to me by default support both functionalities. Not that I've yet had any reason to make multi-volume archives, but it's nice that I have the option to: I can imagine situations where it'd be useful.

 

[KGIII]

I don't ever use it, but I admire the math.

ZPAQ - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Nobody ever uses it. It results in much smaller files than other compression algorithms but it's very slow. There are a couple more compression algorithms that are even more effective at compressing data but they're absurdly slow.

So, I guess my 'favorite' would probably be .zip because that's what I come across the most and it just works. I did pay for WinRAR back in the day. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that paid for WinRAR. I should find my license, 'cause I bet it's still valid. I think I'd need Windows to test that.

 

[MikeRocor]

tar with gzip compression. It's just easy and it's as easy to use as tar without compression. I couldn't vouch for its speed or the effectiveness of gzip's compression. It doesn't compress jpeg files or other file types that are already compressed but then... they -are- already compressed.

 

[Rob]

tgz.. til the day I die

 

[CaffeineAddict]

7z with LZMA2 compression because that's the highest compression rate you can get of all other algorithms.

The only downside is that it won't keep fs permissions and ownership but this can be solved by first creating a tar archive.

 

[dos2unix]

Usually tar with either gzip or bzip2. The problem with a most Windows based "zip" applications, is that zip doesn't support Linux ACL's (owners/permissions).

 

[KGIII]

7z with LZMA2 compression because that's the highest compression rate you can get of all other algorithms.

You may find this interesting:

Maximum file compression benchmark RAR versus 7Z ARC ZIPX

Maximum file compression benchmark. 7Z, ARC, ZIPX versus RAR comparison for best, most powerful compressor format.

peazip.github.io

However... You probably want to stick with LZMA2 just for the time savings during both compression and decompression. The advantages of ZPAQ (and ARC) will take a while.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

However... You probably want to stick with LZMA2 just for the time savings during both compression and decompression. The advantages of ZPAQ (and ARC) will take a while.

I never heard of ZPAQ, thanks for sharing, seems it beats 7z ultra compression.
However Ark likely will not support that algorithm and I don't like the idea to switch GUI since Ark is the default in KDE.

 

[KGIII]

I never heard of ZPAQ, thanks for sharing, seems it beats 7z ultra compression.

Yeah, there's no reason to change what you're doing. I was just sharing. I do believe the two methods share the same compression method with different tweaks - but using the similar processes. If you're bored:

LZ77 and LZ78 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Interestingly, if you look into other compression methods, there are some amazing numbers. H.264 (used for compressing video) has an absolutely amazing ability to compress files while still giving you a result that's watchable.

 

[909mjolnir]

I agree that the algorithms are aesthetically pleasing and impressive. I really groove on the marvels of compression. It's one of the few technologies that really shines.

As for interfaces/programs, I recently switched from xarchiver to file-roller and I'm really liking how it's working out on Manjaro XFCE Linux. It's a bit easier to add to an archive via drag and drop on file-roller compared to xarchiver (as far as I know). I suppose I ought to try PeaZip again, as somebody here recently mentioned.

As nitpicky as it is, I also like how you can "compress" the filenames from *.tar.xz to *.txz
I'm mentally fussy in a foolish way in terms of being "afraid" of having periods within filenames, so it eases my silly brain when I can get rid of the two periods and just have one instead of the concatenated filetype suffixes. I know it's silly, but I always find it kinda neat and it's easier on my eyes.

I wish I knew how to script to rename all my archives this way, but for now I do it manually or use a bulk renamer to do it.

 

[spacebanana]

7zip is definitely the king

• Official application has a great CLI and some GUI archivers just wrap around it
• 7zip archives suppport AES 256 encryption with header encryption support
• Support for many compression formats, but the default is one of the best in speed/size ratio (LZMA2)

Otherwise I just use zip because it's the most widespread, good for when I want to send an archive to someone

 

[dos2unix]

I just use zip because it's the most widespread,

The downside is you lose Linux file ownerships and permissions.