SQX format for compression

[imtrobin]

Hi,

I recently came to know about the sqx format (Squeez from the recent archive compression review)

http://www.speedproject.de/enu/squeez/

Upon some testing, the format does offer compression slightly better as the latest rar 3.0. However, I don't see this format being used widely as rar. I'm contemplating to switch my archives to that format, so I'm a little concerned about its stability (corruption and recovery).

Is there anyone using this format to store their files? Care to comment?

[Carol Haynes]

I have moved to Sqeeze for all of my compression stuff now since it natively supports almost everything and is easy to use.

One of the nice things is built in SE support, and also SQX and RAR can have recovery records added which makes it feel secure.

I haven't had an SQX file go bad so I can't really comment on the strength of the recovery record method.

[imtrobin]

The rar format is an older version which only uses 1MB dictionary = lousier compression. Squeez developers cannot use the latest rar version with 4MB dictionary because they claim it infriges on some patent.

I stored using zips before, they can get corrupted. So now comtemplating between sqx or rar. Rar seems to be more widely used.

[Carol Haynes]

RAR is more widely used (but nowhere near as widely as ZIP).

Can't really see the problem with using SQX since they are easy to make self extracting.

[Innuendo]

SQX is a non-standard file compression format. If the files you are compressing are never going to leave your hard drive I guess it's fine to use, but if you are ever going to send one of those archives to a friend you're either going to need to convert it to something standard or burden your friend with having to go download an odd-ball compression program they'll probably never use again. I guess you could make all of your archives on your hard drive self-extracting, but that adds overhead to the file size because of the extraction code that must be added to every file & then you are defeating the purpose of going with the more efficient compression program in the first place.

On the WWW Zip is the most widely used format. On P2P you'll only see Zip & RAR with RAR outnumbering Zips. On Usenet all you'll see is RAR.

Regarding the RAR support. RAR Labs does not & never has licensed the code to create RAR archives. This joker reverse-engineered WinRAR v1.x in order to add RAR creation support to his program. This is a direct violation of the WinRAR EULA. Only reason he doesn't have support for the latest RAR format is because he's not smart enough to reverse-engineer the latest versions (Eugene beefed up the program's protection).

If you want to support a pinhead who violates software EULAs and goes against the wishes of other software developers when it comes to  their intellectual property that's your business, but I won't be using any of this dill weed's programs.

[Carol Haynes]

You could equally well say RAR is a non standard format since it is proprietary. If you want to go for true portability there is only one real standard and that is ZIp which is the only compression format that current versions of windows will open as standard without the need for other software.

[imtrobin]

I like the idea of the Squuez program where I can view into the archive file as a folder. Comprexx does this do but I couldn't get it to work. I just rather install 1 application than many archive programs - winrar for rar, izarc for zip etc.

Pity rar is a closed format. If he can license creating rar to other compressors, that will be great. Cos winrar isn't really that great interface. End of the day, consumers lose out.

[f0dder]

RAR isn't a closed format - only the compression code is kept secret. There's full source available for a consone unrar, allowing it to be ported to whatever systems. So...

[mouser]

i happen to own winrar and like it a lot, but i do dislike that the compression algorithm is proprietary.  i wish we could standardize on algorithms that are open source, that could be used by any programm to compress and decompress.

[Innuendo]

Zip is old and outdated & not to mention the author is dead. PKWare is just coasting on past glory and eventually something will overtake it. RAR is gaining ground every day. Even the newbie 7zip is making inroads.

I prefer one tool for all my unarchiving needs as well & I chose PowerArchiver. It's got a nice looking GUI, supports almost all known formats, and even has a unique icon for each archive format.

I trust RAR for my data more than I trust Zip....and I trust them both more than some off-the-wall compression algorithm concocted by a code thief.

[imtrobin]

I done some testing and sqx is marginally better compression than rar. If it's better, why is it not widely used? And the compressor is available.

The only reason is I like Squeeze over those archivers like winzip, winrar, power archiver is the explorer like interface. I rather not have to buy a seperate winrar just to compress rar.

[masu]

SQX is really strong on image compressing. But I like the 7Zip format mroe, because the compression is better than RAR and it is also OpenSource