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News and Reviews => Official DonationCoder.com Reviews => Mini-Reviews by Members => Best Archive Tool => Topic started by: JeffK on September 05, 2005, 04:51 PM
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mouser, other than Zaine who were the main contributors to this review.
Jeff
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Thanks Zaine,
My only comment is on StuffIt. You say it has good MS Office support. I haven't used the latest version but in the last three versions they have had MS Office support and it has at best been flaky.
It looks good on the surface but in each of the three previous versions I disabled it after giving it a go as it caused so many headaches in Office - particularly other macros.
The only reason I used it was because I needed SIT file support, but I won't be upgrading from now on (and probably won't bother installing it in the future as the need for SIT support these days is marginal).
WinZip have lost one customer. I have had WinZip installed for the last 5 years but I won't be upgrading again!
WinRAR is definitely the way to go for me - and it isn't just that lifetime free upgrades (er ... didn't WinZip promise that when you registered), but is is a lot slicker and comes as a complete set of tools.
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jibz and i helped with the most minor of editing and proofreading, but really this monster of a review was, believe it or not, all done by Zaine.
It's actually the longest review on the site (and as you know that's saying quite a bit) - and a huge amount of love and care and work went into it. I can't tell you how much we appreciate Zaine agreeing to do this review, and how thrilled we are with the result.
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Sorry to hear of your experience with StuffIt's MS Office integration. It worked fine for me, but this version inserted both a toolbar (on its own row every time) and created its own menu. For me, that was too much, but someone must have liked it. But it reminded me of the old Microsoft trick of tossing in features that almost no one uses, and telling everyone that they've made over 300 improvements! Oy.
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Zaine, your review was absolutely stunning. I feel safe in saying that it is the highest quality and most comprehensive comparative review I have ever read on the Internet (and nearly all of the other good examples are here on DC).
I don't think I have anything to add or disagree with on the review itself as the testing methods, background info, range of products tested and conclusions were all spot on IMHO.
Thanks for the considerable hard work and my thanks also to mouser and Jibz for their input into this monster.
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that has to be the Daddy of all reviews, Zaine.
i learned the hard way how long such things take to do (about 10 times longer than you first believe) so i can appreciate the time and effort involved that you've had to put in to it - it looks like you did enjoy doing it, though.
i think everyone here was expecting something exceptional from you and so it is.
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Mouser,
Where's the review gone? I'm getting 404s.
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i uploaded the wrong file about an hour ago, and only disovered it about 20 min ago.
can you check again now, everything should be fine now, assuming the caches arent causing trouble.
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Might just be caches, but still 404 :(
When I click the link, I get a page that lists all the reviews. There should be a graphic, but that's just a box withan X in it, too.
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damn it wtf.
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can you try again?
try ctrl+alt+shift reload button, or whatever that combo is.
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Yes, there now, thanks. Must have been caches. On this version of IE (5) reload button is F5, "Refresh." At least I think that's what it means...
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Zaine,
Are you aware of Jeff Gilchrist's compression tests
http://compression.ca
The Archive Comparison Test (ACT) is a set of benchmarks designed to show the state of the art in lossless data compression. It contains benchmarks on various types of data for compression speed, uncompression speed, and compression ratio.
Rather out of date as he's working on his thesis, but interesting.
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I'd second what Carol (and Zaine) have to say about StuffIt and Office integration - it quite often "breaks" Outlook and is a PIA in its habit of insisting on opening a toolbar on a separate row. This was the case in version 8 and in the latest version, 9. For those of us who like to customise and set our toolbars this is unacceptable.
OT but why hasn't Microsoft given users of Office 2003 (which I've just upgraded to) the option to lock their toolbars?
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I'd guess locking toolbars is a bit difficult when they are generated by third party products. Adobe Acrobat is notorious for cocking up other toolbars (at least it does in version 5), and the macros that generate StuffIt 8 and 9 toolbars are generated on the fly when the program starts up - which is why the position is not retained.
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ive seen that toolbar opening on its own row before with powerpoint addins and it is so damn annoying.
why is it always microsoft apps that have trouble behaving well on their own operating system!
i mean sure, they are 3rd party addins but its MS responsibility to make a sensible plugin system that wouldnt be prone to this.
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Trouble is programmers can take shortcuts, and do. I think this is one area where MS can't be blamed really (there aren't many times I'd say that). Actuallythere must be times where being able to generate custom toolbars on the fly would be useful.
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well construct them on the fly fine, but have a way to let them dock into the pre-existing toolbar instead of taking up a row of their own.
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There is a way to do that - it isn't MS's fault if developers can't be bothered!
I have toolbars in MS Word, Excel and Outlook all of which are able to retain their correct position each time the app starts.
For me it is one criteria to decide whether to use a piece of software. If developers can't get that right what chance have they got of writing software that behaves properly in other respects ?
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good point.
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Congratulations for this great review!. But I miss two vital pieces of information; the version number for each program tested, and maybe even more important the switches/settings used. They greatly influence speed and compression ratio.
It seems you used an older version for WinRK as they were quite buggy... If you really want to find out the best possible compression use WinRK in PWCM-mode. The complete test will take about 55-60 hours on your PC, but at least you know where the current compression limit is. ;)
For people looking for the best possible compression (not user friendliness / speed) have a look at my Maximum Compression website found here : http://maximumcompression.com/ it features 'all' top compressors including experimental ones like PAQAR and Durilca. Compression ratio is what counts here...
BTW I think I agree with the three winners you choose (not really sure about TugZip).
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wow that's a fantastic page fulcrum! - i'm going to add a link to it from the archive tool review sidebar right now.
you're right, we need to start adding version #s to programs that are mentioned in our reviews - sometimes we forget that the review lives on past the day it was posted :)
56 hours hehehehehe.
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wow that's a fantastic page fulcrum! - i'm going to add a link to it from the archive tool review sidebar right now.
you're right, we need to start adding version #s to programs that are mentioned in our reviews - sometimes we forget that the review lives on past the day it was posted :)
56 hours hehehehehe.
-mouser
Thanks for adding the site!. And yes version numbers would be nice (are you also thinking about releasing the switches/options used in the test?).
You really did the WinRK - PWCM thing???. :up:
May I ask which 'Relative Compression Ratio' it would score?. (I asume you let it use the dictionary and at least 500 Mb mem to play with)
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i was just laughing at the idea of running at 56 hour compression test. now if i really could have run it between the time of your two posts i would have a time warp machine, and if i had that.. i wouldnt be admiting it :)
(actually i have run experiments on my other computer that have run for 3 months at 100% cpu, but that's another story)
actually i didn't write the review, zaine did, he should be back online soon.
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Thanks for the kind words, guys, I really appreciate it!
Fulcrum, you make some good points. I did not include version numbers because I felt they are constantly changing anyway. For example, seven of the apps were updated, and five of the 14 apps were upgraded in the past month, and in the last two days as I was finishing, WinZip released its Pro 10 beta. It turned out to be a timely review.
I did, however, use the latest version of WinRK, and the only reason I included it on the site was because of its excellent compression rate, of which I found at the site you listed, Maximumcompression.com. I also kept downloading the testing each program's latest release throughout the review. Version info could be easily added, but I made the decision to say "as of Fall 2005" and let readers review each program's history file to see what version was out in August/Sept 2005.
Early on, I found lots of resources at Maximumcompression.com, and RJ, I did study Jeff Gilchrist's excellent studies (http://compression.ca/act/act-win.html) so I'd know what to expect, but spending too much time there was distracting me from the real purpose of the review, which was to find the best archive program, not necessarily the best compression ratio. The latter was only one factor considered, albeit an essential one. The second reason is that I've no expertise with compression algorithms, and could not write intelligently about them without spending an extra month or longer researching for just that part of the review.
As you may have noticed, the section on 7z, RAR, and PPMd formats is cursory at best. Thus the resource links to compression sites listed in the left panel of the review. When you dive deep into the content of those sites, you're quickly impressed with the work those authors have done. There was no way I could replicate such exact tests, and as mentioned above, it was beyond the scope of this review.
Finally, you make another important point on settings within each program. The only tweaks I made regarded compression levels — Normal, Fast, Max (some list it Ultra or SuperFast or Best) and nothing else for each program. I started flirting with dictionary sizes, but there was no way to standardize these settings across all the archivers tested because most did not allow users to change those settings. So I merely left them at the default settings and just changed compression levels for each format when archiving my test file.
My goal was to take each program and try to get the fastest archive I could, despite compression ratio, and then reverse that and get the best compression ratio I could, no matter the time. When you look at that comparative Excel grid, you'll see the fastest time I could get using any compression level for each app, and then the smallest compression ratio I could. Those two numbers are independent, not linked to each other. There was a direct correlation between ratio and time — the more you demanded from one, the less you received from the other, proving the saying: you don't get something for nothing.
Thanks for the feedback! I'm grateful for it.
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Hello.
I am Matteo Riso, ZipGenius developer. A ZG user pointed me to your review and I find it really nice, but I have to point out some errors upon ZipGenius.
(http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/509/featuregrid014ax.th.png) (http://img389.imageshack.us/my.php?image=featuregrid014ax.png)
1 . "Best archive size achieved". Did you try Brutal+UPX compression level?
In ZipGenius 6 you can put "UPX.exe" ( http://upx.sourceforge.net ) in ZipGenius program folder. The program will recognize it and you will be allowed to pre-compress executable files (EXE, OCX, DLL) through UPX, before adding them to a ZIP file.
Why I added this feature? Many applications are distributed uncompressed but they could be smaller if their developers would use UPX. Here is a PDF about the benefit of using UPX as precompressor: Read this UPX (http://web.rossoalice.it/zipgenius/zg6/docs/zipupx.pdf). This feature will produce smaller ZIP files, even smaller than using WinZip's Maximum (Enhanced deflate) compression method, which also produces non-portable zip files (e. g.: you can't read those archives in other ZIP utilities).
2 . "Batch archive extraction". This feature is partially supported. Better: it is an automatic procedure. You just have to open multiple archives at once (ZipGenius uses tabs like Firefox to display the content of many archives) and right-clik on tabs:
(http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/6789/sgphoto200509070833006rq.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
Now you just have to click on "Extract all archives to separated folders". This is a batch procedure driven by the program.
Other batch actions may be done by hand using the command line support.
3 . "Licence type - SW". That's wrong.
ZipGenius is free for any environment: home, office, corporate, educational and so on. Donations are accepted just to maintain the main website and other services like mirror sites, forum , FAQ and Help online.
4 . "Cons" in your review:
(http://img370.imageshack.us/img370/3477/image17ym.png) (http://imageshack.us)
Yes, it can, and it can also split other kind of files through the Cutter ZGTool.
The Suite Edition of ZipGenius includes both UPX.exe and Cutter tool, so that should be the package to use when trying out all ZipGenius features: except compiled help files, it includes everything plus additional themes for ZipGenius GUI.
Greetings :up:
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hi matteo, welcome to the site!
i know zaine will get back to you about your comments and make changes to the review - it is a huge amount of work to do these reviews and inevitably a few mistakes slip in but we are anxious to get them corrected right away, and the changes will be up today with a little note at top pointing readers to them.
great to hear that zip genius is donation ware - and i encourage everyone to check it out and consider making a donation. us donation-based coders have to stick together after all :)
one other thing that i think everyone here agrees about, which is that having an active developer of a program, who is a real person, who takes the time to come make a post like this, is worth its weight in gold - it is so refreshing, and it speaks volumes for your integriry and commitment to the program. i know that i'm going to go try zipgenius and keep my eye on it, and look forward to watching it develop.
please feel free to post occasionally about any new developments, or if you want some feedback about ideas, etc. do not hesitate to stop by and talk.
-mouser
ps. ZipGenius homepage: http://www.zipgenius.it/index_eng.htm
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Thanks Matteo, and please accept my apologies. I downloaded and worked with the Standard version, unaware of the additional functionality of the Suite edition. I will work with it for a day and update the review within 48 hours (Thursday AM if not sooner).
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Just a quick note on using UPX as a precompressor -- it is not a reversible operation, and as such would not be lossless compression.
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the real purpose of the review, which was to find the best archive program, not necessarily the best compression ratio.-zridling
Of course, everyone has different criteria for "best" ;)
Most of my archives are made by automated processes, i.e. batch files. That means I want a command-line tool, or at least, one that can be controlled from the command line. By the same token, I have essentially no interest in obligatory point-and-click GUIs, and I missed comments on which if any products were command-line compatible. If I really want a GUI, I use Total Commander as the shell.
If something is "freeware," I like to know whether it's free for all uses, or for personal use only. In future reviews, maybe the word "cost" could be supplemented by "license?"
Oh, dear, this does sound negative...
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Not at all, RJ! I considered the command line dimension to the review, but realized that I would be quickly overwhelmed, as that would add more apps than I could review effectively. A LOT of people use the command line, especially if they work at their computer for a living. As such, I considered it a separate review altogether, e.g., Best Command Line Compression Tool.
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winrar has very good commandline support, doesn't it? i hear this mentioned frequently when people say they like winrar.
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I think so .. I only ever use the rar.exe command line tool to create archives :up:.
I also use it from scripts to perform backups. It has some handy features, like automatically adding date and time to archive names.
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As such, I considered it a separate review altogether, e.g., Best Command Line Compression Tool.
-zridling
Ah. (Is there a smiley for sublime innocence?) When are you bringing that one out? ::)
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winrar has very good commandline support, doesn't it? i hear this mentioned frequently when people say they like winrar.
-mouser
That's good. But, a lot of my archives are made at work, for work. There's a limit to the amount of my own money that I'm willing to spend for work. Naturally, the supplied tools are limited by the corporation's willingness to spend money...
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I use rar.exe extensively and can second that RAR has excellent command-line support and even has a few features that the GUI version doesn't. For example, the rather useful 'L' command for creating listings of archives.
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Just a quick note on using UPX as a precompressor -- it is not a reversible operation, and as such would not be lossless compression.
-Jibz
UPX in theory should be reversable (giving exactly the same pre-compression binary after using -d to decompress it) as it is one of the few exe compressors which stores a copy of the exe's original relocation table etc. Of course, although files can often be decompressed back into the same exe, if they are left compressed after unzipping the archive (I'm not entirely sure of how ZipGenius works having never used it) there is a chance the will not work when run in a compressed form.
Here is an example of UPX decompressing properly: -
D:\TEST>copy buildwiz.exe before.exe
D:\TEST\buildwiz.exe => D:\TEST\before.exe
1 file copied
D:\TEST>upx --best buildwiz.exe
Ultimate Packer for eXecutables
Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
UPX 1.24w Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer & Laszlo Molnar Nov 7th 2002
File size Ratio Format Name
-------------------- ------ ----------- -----------
462848 -> 126976 27.43% win32/pe buildwiz.exe
Packed 1 file.
D:\TEST>upx -d buildwiz.exe
Ultimate Packer for eXecutables
Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
UPX 1.24w Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer & Laszlo Molnar Nov 7th 2002
File size Ratio Format Name
-------------------- ------ ----------- -----------
462848 <- 126976 27.43% win32/pe buildwiz.exe
Unpacked 1 file.
D:\TEST>md5sum *.exe
b385e22beec3e37250b8ccf7d86e916c *before.exe
b385e22beec3e37250b8ccf7d86e916c *buildwiz.exe
That being said, there is no guarentee that the file will decompress accurately back to the original as UPX works on processing information within the exe (Jibz could tell us a lot more on this) rather than an archiver which will just treat the exe as a raw data file. From experience it seems that generally only older/simpler exe files decompress back correctly as UPX does seem to mangle, or at least misunderstand, the headers of many newer exes. This is probably due to it not having been updated in many years (except some dodgy Alphas) so has problems with some of the tweaked formats generated by newer compilers such as Visual Studio 2003 onwards and may even refuse to compress them in some cases unless you force it to. Here is an example of UPX mangling a newer exe: -
D:\TEST>copy Tsizepro.exe before.exe
D:\TEST\Tsizepro.exe => D:\TEST\before.exe
1 file copied
D:\TEST>upx --best Tsizepro.exe
Ultimate Packer for eXecutables
Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
UPX 1.24w Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer & Laszlo Molnar Nov 7th 2002
File size Ratio Format Name
-------------------- ------ ----------- -----------
2338816 -> 841216 35.96% win32/pe Tsizepro.exe
Packed 1 file.
D:\TEST>upx -d Tsizepro.exe
Ultimate Packer for eXecutables
Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
UPX 1.24w Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer & Laszlo Molnar Nov 7th 2002
File size Ratio Format Name
-------------------- ------ ----------- -----------
2338816 <- 841216 35.96% win32/pe Tsizepro.exe
Unpacked 1 file.
D:\TEST>md5sum *.exe
fdb6a21d4bf28ac48386e39b231ae6d9 *before.exe
e416ee063fd5f278a1b9391fae658b40 *Tsizepro.exe
I wouldn't risk using this ZipGenius compression option personally, it seems to be a poor kludge to work around compression limitations in the Zip format, and I doubt it gives much real world compression gain as well as potentially mangling some of your executables. If you are going to make a non-standard format archive (Matteo said they were non-portable) the programmer might as well use a better compression algorithm such as LZMA and not mess around with risking user's executables.
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Oddly (good?) ZipGenius offers you the option of not compressing executables before initiating compression. But it made no difference on my test file.
RJ, I nominate you and Jibz to write the joint Best Command Line Compression Tool review. ;)
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RJ, I nominate you and Jibz to write the joint Best Command Line Compression Tool review. ;)
-zridling
I couldn't possibly approach the quality of your review :-[ Besides, I'm busy in other parts of the wood...
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D:\TEST>md5sum *.exe
fdb6a21d4bf28ac48386e39b231ae6d9 *before.exe
e416ee063fd5f278a1b9391fae658b40 *Tsizepro.exe
I wouldn't risk using this ZipGenius compression option personally, it seems to be a poor kludge to work around compression limitations in the Zip format, and I doubt it gives much real world compression gain as well as potentially mangling some of your executables. If you are going to make a non-standard format archive (Matteo said they were non-portable) the programmer might as well use a better compression algorithm such as LZMA and not mess around with risking user's executables.
-Sentinel
Good to hear this. Can you send an executable file compiled with Visual Studio 2003 to zipgenius (AT ) gmail.com? I tested UPX a lot before adding it to ZG 6 and - yes - I did that to open new ways to ZIP compression format. It is true that ZIP format is now almost obsolete, but it is still widely used and this forced me to offer a portable alternative WinZip's enhanced deflate. While WZ-made zip files are not portable to other utilities, ZIP archives with UPX-compressed executable are: you can open them in other utilities because the ZIP algorhythm is always the standard one and not a modified version as WinZip's implementation.
Anyway, all suggestions are well accepted ;)
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matteo, maybe when you get a chance you might post some thoughts to this thread as well, about donationware: https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=825.0;topicseen
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Semi off-topic. Matteo, I was just in chat room where users were bragging about how good ZipGenius support was, and three people in a row mentioned your name and gave examples of how you had helped them out or responded to their questions. That's class.
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Semi off-topic. Matteo, I was just in chat room where users were bragging about how good ZipGenius support was, and three people in a row mentioned your name and gave examples of how you had helped them out or responded to their questions. That's class.
-zridling
Thank you and thanks to those users :D
I am an user, too.
I started ZipGenius development because I was tired of seeing WinZip's nag screen at each WZ startup, so I learned how to write an application with Delphi. It was 1997 and the original program name was "Mr. Zip 98" but I had to find a different name because "MR ZIP" was the name of another zip utility (now abandoned).
:up:
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zridling,
Here's a thread on TalkAboutShareware referring to your archiver review:
http://www.talkaboutshareware.com/group/alt.comp.freeware/messages/409885.html
It being usenet, anyone who goes in there must be qualified to catch bullets in their teeth while juggling chainsaws...
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Hello guys,
I am new to this site, and landed here via diggdot.us (http://diggdot.us)
Kudos to Zaine for that great review on "Best Archiver". :up:
My favorite remains WinZip, mainly because of its excellent GUI (especially its tight Explorer integration),
and more so since the Zip format is the the most popular archiving format around.
I didn't find any ratings given to the reviewed archivers for their file-format support.
With loads of archive formats floating around the web, it is essential to have atleast a secondary archiving tool,
which supports decompression of these formats.
As of now, my choice of a secondary archiving utility is IZArc.
I agree that IZArc is slow and its UI is basically a clone of WinZip.
But I like it for its support for a multitude of formats:
7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO .
And IZArc's ability to create even .7z files is an icing on the cake (which means I have no need for 7Zip - even though
it is to be commended for coming out with an open-source archive format).
I haven't checked out the new WinRAR (its old versions were nothing but RAR-enabled clones of WinZip),
but thanks to you guys, I will do so soon. Keep up the good work.
Regards,
veekay.
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welcome veekay.
in fact you sum up exactly why i still use winzip for 99% of my needs:
My favorite remains WinZip, mainly because of its excellent GUI (especially its tight Explorer integration),
and more so since the Zip format is the the most popular archiving format around.
-mouser
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I have used practically all of these utilities (most of them installed together until recently) and have finally settled on Squeeze which has a nice interface and supports just about all the formats natively in one simple inteface (including RAR compression and extraction without having WinRAR installed). Seems to integrate into Explorer as well as any of the others. It has all the functions (recovery records and SXF modules) built in and SQX format archives seem to give a good compression ratio (better than RAR most of the time).