Your preferred WinZip Alternative?

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 10:24 am

WinRar is the only one!

Crash · Post by **Crash** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 11:12 am

BinaryB wrote:Open Source so its free

http://www.7-zip.org/

Not for OSX though.

There are OS X ports somewhere on the web. My bandmate is using it to send me large Live Sets from his OS X to my Windows. Go get it, there is nothing squeezing as much out of Live Sets as 7-ZIP apart from WinRar (which also offers an OS X port). 1.5 GB sets can be compressed downto about 650 MB depending on the settings with both. Ableton's "Clips" directory is compressed from 125 mb downto around 3 mb in less than 20 seconds with both.

7-ZIP is somewhat better with short audio-clips and repetetive content where RAR is better with mixed program material. Rar incorporates an extra algorithm for audio, which 7.ZIP will introduce only sometime in the future 7. For most of our own Live Sets 7-ZIP seems to do a slightly better job, but can take longer when compressing ("Normal" sometimes takes quite long even on multi-cores and "Fast" only uses one CPU until a future release). With any Compressor use the largest Dictionary and Wordsize that your RAM allows you to have in order to squeeze most out of it.

Tone Deft wrote:links at the end, I'm not sure what the trial period is or where the version is w/o a trial period. I've been using it for free for months.

Winrar is not free. Yes you can keep using it after the trial period, but you ought to buy it. UNrar is free, but so is UNzip, UNstuffit (aka StuffIT Expander) and most and every other DEcompressor for about every compression format. Which makes sense if you want it to become widespread, think like PDF Reader and Acrobat.

WinZIP 12 offer some real advantage over both RAR and 7-ZIP. First of all it includes 7-ZIP LZMA compression algorithm now, and second it offers JPG compression that consistently squeezes down JPGs by about 25%. So if you think about paying for a compressor keep WinZIP in mind, but 7-ZIP and RAR are still the best options for Live Sets, with 7-ZIP being the best free one.

Crash · Post by **Crash** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 1:16 pm

Here some comparison number of WinZIP, WinRAR and 7-ZIP. The BEST compression method offered by every compressor was used, time was not measured, just size.

1. "Ableton" directory that usually installed in your user directory (inclusing Clips, Samples, Lessons, Presets, some recorded samples etc):

Original size : 452.4 mb

WinZIP: 101.2 mb (22.4%)

WinRAR (SOLID): 80.4 mb (17.8%)
WinRAR (non-SOLID): 100.2 mb (22.1%)

7-ZIP (SOLID): 82.5 mb (18.2%)
7-ZIP (non-SOLID): 107.1 mb (23.6%)

Manually forcing WinZIP to use LZMA (corresponds to 7-ZIP "Normal" but without support for SOLID archives) instead of "Best" (which uses WAVPACK for audio-files) results in 109.2 mb (24%). So LZMA performs worse than WAVPACK on these files!

2. Our last onstage live Set for a short 40 minute gig (including Freezes, Consolidates, Imported Samples, Drum Kit etc, aka lots of 32-bit floating-point WAVs):

Original size : 1550 mb

WinZIP: 806.3 mb (52%)
WinRAR (SOLID): 672.2 mb (43.4%)
7-ZIP (SOLID): 639.4 mb (41.3%)

Manually forcing WinZIP to use LZMA (corresponds to 7-ZIP "Normal" but without support for SOLID archives) instead of "Best" (which uses WAVPACK for audio-files) results in 700 mb (45%). So LZMA performs better than WAVPACK on these files!

I am eagerly awaiting the future LZMA2 algorithm of 7-ZIP that brings audio-specific optimizations. But even without these it competes with and sometimes beats the other already optimized compressers. WinZIP's most lacking feature is missing support for SOLID archives.

kaffein · Post by **kaffein** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 1:36 pm

Yeah, but I bet winzip is still faster than all those, hell even winace.

R.A.W. · Post by **R.A.W.** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 1:48 pm

kaffein wrote:Yeah, but I bet winzip is still faster than all those, hell even winace.

who cares? 7zip is free, that justifies waiting 0-5% longer

kaffein · Post by **kaffein** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 2:00 pm

I've actually had major problems with it in the past (had to reformat type issues), but it's been probably 5 years since that. Who knows, I just stick with built in and winrar.

Crash · Post by **Crash** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 2:42 pm

Nope, WinZIP is the slowest of the three! WinRAR is fastest and well worth the money. So either pay for WinRAR (it's well worth the money) or use 7-ZIP for free!

Compressing the "Ableton" directory at "Normal" compression settings (WinZIP offers only one setting apart from chosing the algorithm), reading from one SATA drive -> writing to another SATA drive:

WinZIP: 4.00 min, 101.2 mb
WinZIP (classic ZIP, no multicore): 2.20, 133.8 mb

WinRAR (SOLID): 1.33, 81.5 mb
WinRAR (classic ZIP, no multicore): 0.45 min, 135.3 mb

7-ZIP (SOLID): 2.10 min, 84.1 mb
7-ZIP (classic ZIP, no multicore): 1.37 min, 131.0 mb
7-ZIP (classic ZIP, upto 4 threads): 0.45 min, 131.0 mb

By the way, Livepacks use BZIP2 (no multicore). Not among the best choices on modern computers, but better than classic ZIP. I suggested to them either using the free (LGPL, now Public Domain) 7-ZIP to Ableton or licencing RAR for a small fee for better compression and multicore support.

3dot... · Post by **3dot...** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 5:00 pm

winrar is virtually free... there's only a nag screen...tried 7zip...didn't like

gjm · Post by **gjm** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 5:25 pm

@ crash... thanks for the detailed explanation and the comparisons. I appreciate the time taken.

G.

Crash · Post by **Crash** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 6:19 pm

3dot... wrote:winrar is virtually free... there's only a nag screen...tried 7zip...didn't like

That Porsche is virtually free... there's only a nag screen... (telling me to pay, but as long as they don't send the police after me I can keep driving it)... tried the Volkswagen... didn't like.

3dot... · Post by **3dot...** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 6:28 pm

Crash wrote:
3dot... wrote:winrar is virtually free... there's only a nag screen...tried 7zip...didn't like
That Porsche is virtually free... there's only a nag screen... (telling me to pay, but as long as they don't send the police after me I can keep driving it)... tried the Volkswagen... didn't like.

that's a nice anecdote ... keep goin'...

Crash · Post by **Crash** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:17 am

So who on this thread other than Leedsquietman paid for using Rar?

And to all the others: You don't need to use ZIP just because of inbuild ZIP decompression in Windows and OS X and you don't need to pay for installing Decompressors of any format, they all come for free (UnRar, UnZip, StuffIt Expander etc).

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:10 am

I bought winRar. Like you say, well worth the money.