BEST Compression Software ?

Hi Guys,

Can you please tell me which is the best compression software? At present I am using 7Zip but it does not fulfill my needs. I want to compress my malware samples at a very extreme rate and without getting them corrupted. I generally exchange samples with many malware hunters and in order to save my bandwidth, I need a good compression software which can compress 1 GB of files into 200 or 300 MB ...

Any help/suggestion will be highly appreciated ..

Cheers,

 

I have heard about PAQ8 Compression software... Does anybody used it?

 

Install PeaZip http://www.peazip.org/index.html and test Paq vs. FreeArc They are probably better than 7zip http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_sf.php

If you don't like PeaZip FreeArc has gui and support for Paq (I think) http://freearc.org/Benchmarks.aspx 2-10% better than 7zip was about right when I tested it long time ago. I seem to remember that Paq was so slow I dropped any test. Arc being the only free and usable alternative.

WinRK is even better but not free, with gui though http://www.msoftware.biz/products/winrk#tabs-tabset-1

Think most of the others are command line stuff.

 

Hi Bro,

You are right. PAQ is really really slow. I will try FreeArc.. I am already using PeaZip, but if I use PAQ compression method then it will take ages to compress my files

Any other suggestion?

 

Well I have used FreeArc too but its compressing files as same 7Zip utility... So it does not add any significance ...

ZAPQ and PAQ8 is very very very slow... So its NO NO for me ..

NOW what's left?

 

have you tried winrar?

 

Since many malware samples are packed/compacted, it's not easy to compress them too much. You can try KGB Archiver though. Or to use ArcConvert by Dirk Paehl to check several compressors performance.

 

Try winuha or lprepaq.

 

Hi Avinash,
Did u try ALZip 7.0 beta

 

Efficacy depends on type of file as well as the compression program: http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_sf.php

You're not kidding. 7-zip: 92 seconds, PAQ8px: 23,427 seconds: http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_mf3.php
Source: http://www.maximumcompression.com/index.html

 

Bought WinRAR five years ago, has been flawless for me. Lifetime license is well worth it.

 

agreed

 

What are the benefits of paid Winrar?
For me, i've always used the free version since i started using PC's

 

I'm curious myself, in that free 7-zip offers almost the same compression ratio.

 

7-Zip's compression ratio is actually noticeably better than WinRAR's. 7-Zip is by far the best mainstream format with wide support in terms of compression ratios.
It's what I'd recomment to the OP.

 

It is but he is not looking for mainstream but small files and with 1gb it can matter. Anyway I "zipped" up my Minefield folder. WinRK was best by far 9.37mb, UHA 10.45mb, 7z 10.94, Freearc 11.27, Std. Zip from Totalcommander 14.85mb which has been left behind due to 7zip updates I think. Was better than 7zip last I checked. Winrar is probably on 7zip level, try beta of new version 4. Imagine how much bandwidth could be saved if WinRK was std. and not zip. Say thanks to proprietary format and conservatism WinRK was last updated in 2008 so I bet he has sold off magic, how it goes. Be thankful for 7zip.

 

If really every byte is cruicial then fine, but it's damn annoying for everyone who would receive such a file to have to install a specific program in order to extract it. That's where the format popularity comes in handy. 7-Zip offers the best popularity/compression ratio and is free.
In any case you can't compress a file beyond a certain point, no matter what the archiver is.

 

Huge Comparison Chart

http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_mf2.php

 

It's not that easy comparing compression software, nor is it logic science.
regarding efficiency (compression ratio/compression speed) PAQ and other rather unknown are a big NO, utterly unefficient.

7-Zip and WinRAR are among the best, but compressing images, one time 7-zip comes on top, doing another batch of images, WinRAR comes on top.

Idem dito for executables, there is no simple conclusion, but atm 7-Zip and WinRAR (and FreeARC) are on top of the pack overall.

 

I would say Winrar is more widely used than 7-Zip based on my experience though i feel both are the same.

 

I guess WinRK is also using PAQ algorithm to compress files.. Not sure though.

 

Definition of best mainly depends on you needs, as for what I can see you are searching for maximum compression rate at reasonable speed, otherwise bandwith you save would not balance the extra computing time cost.

KGB archiver and WinRK uses modified old versions of PAQ, while PeaZip uses reasonably recent version of that algorithm.
PAQ is the champion in terms of compression, but in any case seems too slow for you.
ZPAQ is faster, but still out of the range of something useful for compressing many GB of data.
On maximumcompression.com you can find some other PAQ-like algorithms (and some different algorithms) on the top of the chart, but in all cases the speed is the big issue.

For many types of data applying such powerful compression may end in a very little advantage, so you should try some most common compression algorithm if you want to keep compression time reasonable.
Usually 7Z and ARC format compresses better than RAR, that compresses better than BZ2; any of that compress much more better than ZIP, which is faster.

In short my best guess to find the most effective way to compress your data is to play a little with 7Z format, using LZMA2 algorithm and testing some of the advanced compression options.

 

Uhmm! Free version?

 

WinRAR is still functional after the 40 day trial (with program startup nag screen though)

 

Yep, completely functional, i call it kinda free because it continues working, i don't even know if they remove any features LOL

Always been using it like that and it's all fine