A program for strong file compression. Data compression

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Archivers are programs that can put many files into one large file, called an archive. The archive is convenient to store, copy, forward, etc. As a rule, all archivers also have the function of compressing the information contained in archive files, which reduces the total amount of required disk space.

A modern archiver is not only a file compression program. Today, these programs are equipped with an ever-increasing arsenal of functions, for example, backing up information through archives with saving information on remote server, burning to disk, sending files by e-mail and even publishing files on social networks.

We selected five for testing. popular programs archiving with an interface in Russian: WinRAR, 7-Zip, WinZIP, Hamster Free Zip Archiver and PowerArchiver. The degree of compression was tested in various modes on three sets of files:

Documentation. This set of files consisted only of documents DOC format (Microsoft Word) and XLS ( Microsoft Excel). On this set files, the degree of compression was checked at the maximum settings of the archiving algorithms various programs. The package size is 3.81 MB, there are 36 files in the package.
Photos. This set of files contained 13 JPEG photographs taken digital camera. The package size is 79.2 MB. This photo package was used to evaluate the performance of compression algorithms when dealing with difficult (already compressed) data. As is known, JPEG format- this is already compressed image and compressing it even more is problematic. If the program can at least slightly reduce the size of these files, this will be a huge plus. The main thing is that the storage volume does not increase.
Office. This is what we called the package consisting of program files installed in the Program Files folder Microsoft Office. The total number of files here was 2080, subfolders - 128, and the total size - 855 MB. The purpose of this package is to see how quickly compression occurs in different programs and modes, and how well the programs pack such heterogeneous files.

WinRAR

The word archiver is almost always associated with the WinRAR program. It is a kind of standard for archiving files. However, the functionality of the program has remained virtually unchanged for many years. But competitors do not stand still, and many archiver programs, some of which have already turned into entire file processing combines, have gone far ahead both in the degree of compression and in the available functionality.

But what cannot be taken away from this program is its extreme simplicity, clarity and convenience. WinRAR is so intuitive that you use it completely organically. And yet, the program shows average results in our tests even at high compression rates. You can download the program for review on the official WinRAR website. The best ones are always posted there latest versions programs. Hint: you need to scroll down and find the localized Russian version. If you need a different interface language, look for your language.

7-ZIP

7-Zip is a simple free archiver, which uses its own unique 7z format for archiving, which is very different high degree compression. At the same time, the data processing speed of this algorithm remains comparable to similar algorithms. On the “Documents” and “Office” packages, the compression rate of this program is noticeably ahead of all other methods. The photo package also compressed very well.

The 7z algorithm is built into many multi-archivers, so this program can be used either directly or as part of another archiver that includes the 7z algorithm. 7-Zip can be downloaded from the developer's official website.

WinZIP

The WinZIP program has absorbed the entire evolution of compression algorithms under the general name ZIP. When archiving, you can choose how old version algorithm, as well as new modifications, or let the program itself select the optimal compression degree. And here WinZIP showed itself in an unexpected way. He is the only one of all the programs that was able to compress a package of photos by as much as 20%. The closest value from the rest lies within 0.5%! Thus, WinZIP can help save 20 percent of space when storing JPEG photos.

The program also has many additional functions- this is a backup of your documents (full, incremental, differential backup), recording an archive on a removable disk, sending the created archive via e-mail, upload to FTP server and even publishing the created archive on Facebook. You can download the trial version of the program from the official WinZIP website.

Hamster Free Zip Archiver

The uniqueness of this program is not in the degree of compression or rich functionality, but just the opposite. This is an extremely simple archiver that can pack files in ZIP and 7z formats. There is nothing superfluous in the program. Among the compression settings, the only options available are the choice of archiving format, compression level and file name. It can also divide archives into volumes (like all other programs without exception) and set a password for the archive.

The value of this utility lies more in its convenience and beautiful interface. The archive is created in a few clicks in the wizard mode, and the successful animation of the translucent process window makes a good impression. The compression ratio of the program is practically no different from its analogues. Except that with minimal compression the program practically does not reduce the files in size, but with maximum compression it sometimes takes too long, but this is a whim of the algorithms. The official website for downloading the program is located. The program is Russified and free.

PowerArchiver

It fully deserves its name. A truly powerful archival harvester. Supports many compression formats: ZIP, 7-ZIP, CAB, LHA, BH, TAR, can also support RAR, but you need to specify the path to it in the settings executable file this archiver. Can unpack many formats. It's essentially an aggregator various algorithms and programs in a single shell.

The functionality is not limited to archiving. There is an FTP manager, a disk burner, and functionality Reserve copy. The latter allows you to create backup scripts for backup in automatic mode at a time specified by the user. And even with uploading the archive to the specified storage. For example, to an FTP server. You can download PowerArchiver.

Test results

When compressing Microsoft Office documents, the best was the 7-Zip archiver using the LZMA2 algorithm. Approximately the same results were shown by programs using this algorithm. WinZIP and PowerArchiver when using the improved ZIP algorithm show noticeably best result than when using the ZIP algorithm in the WinRAR program, which ended up in the very tail. Maximum compression methods were used to compress this batch of files. The algorithm used by the program is indicated in parentheses. For your reference, data on the CAB and TAR GZip algorithms is also provided.

	Size (MB)	Compression (%)
Original size	3,82	100,00
WinRAR (ZIP)	2,83	74,12
Hamster FZA (ZIP)	2,82	73,71
PowerArchiver (TarGZ)	2,79	73,11
WinZIP (zip)	2,44	63,78
PowerArchiver (ZIP)	2,43	63,71
WinRAR (RAR)	2,35	61,45
PowerArchiver (CAB)	2,34	61,17
Hamster FZA (7z)	2,32	60,67
PowerArchiver (7z)	2,32	60,65
7-ZIP (LZMA2)	2,32	60,61

The photo files, despite their incompressibility, were only able to be compressed by the WinZIP program. Moreover, the compression turned out to be significant: about 20% of space saved. An improved ZIPx algorithm was used with the option to independently determine the best compression method. PowerArchiver in this case I made a mistake, although I used the same algorithm. Only this program produced a file that was larger in size than the original data. Here are the results:

	Size (MB)	Compression (%)
Original size	79,24	100,00
PowerArchiver (ZIP)	79,35	100,14
Hamster FZA (7z)	79,11	99,83
WinRAR (RAR)	79,08	99,79
PowerArchiver (TarGZ)	78,96	99,64
WinRAR (ZIP)	78,91	99,58
PowerArchiver (7z)	78,89	99,56
7-ZIP (LZMA2)	78,89	99,56
PowerArchiver (CAB)	78,88	99,54
Hamster FZA (ZIP)	78,86	99,52
WinZIP (zip)	62,98	79,47

When compressing files from the Office package, not only the resulting compression was taken into account, but also the execution time spent by different algorithms and programs. Let's take a look at maximum compression first:

	Size (MB)	Compression (%)	Time (minutes)
Original size	855,99	100,00
WinRAR (ZIP)	383,11	44,76	1,0
PowerArchiver (TarGZ)	375,57	43,87	3,5
Hamster FZA (ZIP)	372,83	43,55	11,5
PowerArchiver (CAB)	326,92	38,19	17,0
PowerArchiver (ZIP)	315,81	36,89	6,0
WinZIP (zip)	314,87	36,78	6,0
WinRAR (RAR)	312,61	36,52	4,0
PowerArchiver (7z)	277,85	32,46	12,5
Hamster FZA (7z)	271,08	31,67	9,0
7-ZIP (LZMA2)	270,30	31,58	8,5

Please note the low efficiency of the old ZIP algorithm in WinRAR and Hamster Free Zip Archiver. However, in the first program he worked faster than anyone. Perhaps this observation can be used to quick creation archives. 7-ZIP and its 7z algorithm were again head and shoulders above. But the RAR algorithm surprised me. I was surprised not by the compression ratio, which is quite good, but by the speed with which he did it. It worked 2-3 times faster than the 7z algorithm and showed good compression. Basically, he won the race!

Speaking of racing. Now the data that was obtained in fast compression mode. The file package is the same - “Office”. But in this case, we used the minimum possible compression ratio in each of the algorithms, switching them to high-speed mode. Here is the data we were able to collect:

	Size (MB)	Compression (%)	Time (seconds)
Original size	855,99	100,00
Hamster FZA (ZIP)	856,40	100,05	30
PowerArchiver (ZIP high-speed)	856,32	100,04	45
Hamster FZA (7z)	856,02	100,00	30
WinZIP (zip)	409,81	47,88	45
WinRAR (ZIP)	393,13	45,93	45
PowerArchiver (ZIP fast)	384,32	44,90	60
WinRAR (RAR)	381,79	44,60	60
7-ZIP (LZMA2)	338,21	39,51	90

As we can see in fact, the first three results are not compression at all, but simply saving to an archive. And this is where one drawback of Hamster Free Zip Archiver appears. This program has only three compression settings: minimum, medium and maximum. The minimum compression does not compress at all, the maximum sometimes takes too long. For the ZIP algorithm in PowerArchiver, everything can be corrected by setting a slightly stronger compression, but in the above-mentioned program you will have to use a medium compression level.

The algorithm of the 7-Zip program was ahead in terms of compression, but it also took one and a half times longer than anyone else. Therefore, its result cannot be indicative. It turns out that WinRAR won again in terms of the combination of speed and degree of compression with the fastest possible compression. And the main thing is that the result of his work is predictable. We got from him exactly what we expected.

Imagine! You spent a long time working on some report at home that you will need today. You've just finished and you need to quickly copy everything to a flash drive and run. There are a lot of files, the device is a complete mess, and you only have five minutes. You decide to quickly put all the files into an archive and put them on a flash drive so you can sort it out at work. Some archivers won't compress anything. Others, with their overly complex interface, will take a lot of time to find the necessary files and add them to the archive. And 7-ZIP can simply take a long time to transport. And only WinRAR, with its intuitiveness and thoughtfulness, fast compression even at maximum settings, will provide you with a simple, expected solution: task - tool - result.

Results

So who won? All programs are good. 7-ZIP - if you need powerful compression for free. Hamster Free Zip Archiver - if you need a simple free archive utility. Classic WinRAR is suitable for almost everyone. Moreover, the program can be used even after trial period. You will only need to close one annoying window. Paid WinZIP, perhaps, if only you need to archive photos. Well, PowerArchiver is more powerful because of the additional functionality it provides.

Chinese free archiver, very similar to the paid WinRAR. It can do everything you need to compress any number of files.

Attention! The description below of working with the program refers to more early version: HaoZip 2.3.6832

Everything that is done is done in China :)! This allusion to the theme of a well-known proverb perfectly reflects the unprecedented rise in the productive capacity of the Celestial Empire.

Today there is practically no industry in which China does not represent its products. True, many are very wary of it, since very often it is not of very high quality. However, every year the Chinese industry is improving and sometimes produces quite good things.

It is notable, first of all, for the fact that it attempted to recreate the functionality and even the interface of another famous paid package- WinRAR. Naturally, a complete copy could entail serious liability, so the developers deliberately changed some things, but in essence, those who are accustomed to using WinRAR will very quickly get used to new program.

Below I will give comparison table both archivers:

Comparison of the HaoZip archiver with the paid analogue WinRAR

As you can see, the only difference between these two archivers is that WinRAR uses a proprietary compression algorithm (RAR) by default, while HaoZip works with open formats ZIP, 7Z and TAR. In addition to the supply free analogue includes a number of additional functions for working with files: an image converter, bulk file renaming and MP3 audio merging.

Installing HaoZip

I suggest installing HaoZip to be able to clearly see the high qualifications of Chinese programmers. Here we have several options. The fact is that the latest versions of the program are released only in English and Chinese.

The official Russian localization is one beta behind the current one. This is not very critical, however, if you like to use only the newest versions of software, then you should install the English version of HaoZip, or search for localizers on the Internet.

We will not look for the dubious happiness of getting an unknown how to make a Russified assembly of version 2.4, but will install the official Russian-language release of HaoZip 2.3.6832. To do this, run the installer from the downloaded archive and follow the instructions of the wizard. Once the installation is complete, a window will appear in front of you in which you can basic setup programs:

Here you can choose which types of archives to associate HaoZip with, as well as enable/disable integration of the archiver into the operating system shell. To save the settings, just click the “Ok” button, after which you can launch the program’s working window:

Interface and work with HaoZip

As you can see, the HaoZip interface is very similar to WinRAR’s:

By default, the HaoZip window is divided into three parts (as opposed to only two in WinRAR): the actual file list, a folder tree for navigation, and detailed information about the selected file or directory.

However, this is not the only option for displaying data! In the “View” menu you can set a two-panel view (like a file manager), as well as enable/disable additional navigation bars and change the file list view. But more on that a little later, but now I suggest creating an archive using HaoZip.

Adding files and folders to the archive

To do this, you can either select the desired folder(s) in the list of files, and then click the “Add” button in the program interface, or use the context menu:

The context menu seems more in a convenient way, especially since its items are practically no different from similar WinRAR functions. The only difference is the format of the archive created by default (see screenshot above).

After clicking the "Add" button or selecting a similar archive creation function from the context menu, we will see the following dialog box:

So, for example, in the “Password” tab, you can set your own code for opening the archive, in “Files” you can set a filter for certain types of files that should not/should be included in the archive, and in “Algorithms” you can set a more progressive compression method .

By clicking the “Ok” button, we initiate the creation of an archive with the specified parameters:

Here, as in WinRAR, we have the opportunity to enable background mode work, pause, or even cancel the compression process. What is typical is that when using HaoZip you can achieve a higher degree of compression than in its paid counterpart (however, for this you will have to tinker with the “Algorithms”):

Extracting files from an archive

Now let's look at the reverse process - extracting files from the archive. Here, again, you can use either the interface of the program itself or the context menu, which is identical to WinRAR’s:

The context menu allows you to quickly and without unnecessary dialog boxes extract files (items “Extract to current folder” and “Extract to “folder name...””). If we use the “Extract” button or the “Extract to...” menu item, then we will see a dialog box for unpacking the archive:

Here you can set the path to save the extracted files, specify the mode for updating files in an existing directory, and activate some additional features. After this, all you have to do is click the “Ok” button and wait until the files are unzipped.

So far, we have looked at HaoZip in the context of its similarity to WinRAR, but it has many of its own features. More about them...

As mentioned above, the Chinese archiver can work in two-panel mode, like file managers:

Activate this mode can be done in the “View” menu or by pressing F9. In this form it is very convenient to copy and move files between different folders. In the same menu we can configure the display properties of files and folders, as well as enable/disable additional navigation panels.

The following menu also provides us with quite a lot of functions that were missing in WinRAR:

Additional features

In the "Tools" menu you will find tools that are usually found in file managers. For example, converting image formats, counting checksums selected file or folder, batch renaming of files, batch text replacement in TXT, HTML, PHP, INI, REG and other file types, as well as merging audio files.

It’s also worth mentioning the convenient built-in image viewer:

Unlike WinRAR, it allows you to easily scroll through all the images in the archive without the need to unpack it, and also provides additional tools for zooming, panning, converting and printing images!

Archiver settings

The last menu we’ll look at is “Options”:

In addition to standard access to various settings, HaoZip, like WinRAR, allows the user to change the program's theme. The themes themselves are not included in the archiver by default, but they can be easily downloaded from the Internet.

To do this, you need to either go to the developer’s website (Options - Themes - Upload additional themes), or use a more convenient form download, which can be called by clicking the button in the form of a square with a spectrum on the right above the file display panel (see screenshot above):

After this, a window will open in which you can install the skin you like. double click follow it, and, voila, we get a completely transformed beautiful archiver:

This feature may especially appeal to ladies, since it allows you to transform a dull interface into a extravaganza of colors, since elements from different themes can be combined (add icons from one theme, and color schemes from another)!

conclusions

HaoZip may appeal to the general public because it combines not only good functionality, but also a well-designed interface. If you need a powerful archiver, but you can’t afford paid WinRAR, feel free to install HaoZip and you won’t be disappointed;)!

P.S. Permission granted to freely copy and quote. this article provided that an open active link to the source is indicated and the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny is preserved.

Chinese free archiver, very similar to the paid WinRAR. It can do everything you need to compress any number of files.

Everything that is done is done in China :)! This allusion to the theme of a well-known proverb perfectly reflects the unprecedented rise in the productive capacity of the Celestial Empire. Today there is practically no industry in which China does not represent its products. True, many are very wary of it, since very often it is not of very high quality. However, every year the Chinese industry is improving and sometimes produces quite good things.

Today I will tell you about a rather interesting development by Chinese programmers, which indicates that not only Japan and America can produce good software. I present to your attention the archiver HaoZip. It is notable, first of all, for the fact that it attempted to recreate the functionality and even the interface of another well-known paid package - WinRAR. Naturally, a complete copy could entail serious liability, so the developers deliberately changed some things, but in essence, anyone who is used to using WinRAR will very quickly get used to the new program. Below is a comparison table of both archivers:

Comparison of the HaoZip archiver with the paid analogue WinRAR

As you can see, the only difference between these two archivers is that WinRAR uses a proprietary compression algorithm (RAR) by default, while HaoZip Works with open formats ZIP, 7Z and TAR. In addition, the free analogue includes a number of additional functions for working with files: an image converter, group file renaming and MP3 audio merging.