Is there still a good, free file compression program?
in [Mac Applications]
|
Prev: I miss Classic
Next: Print to pdf broken ?
From: John McWilliams on 2 Apr 2010 11:38 Fred Moore wrote: > In article <81kfdtFcptU1(a)mid.individual.net>, > Jeffrey Goldberg <nobody(a)goldmark.org> wrote: > >> Robert Montgomery wrote: >> >>> I think "Create Archive" wasn't effective >>> enough for my project today because it my 13.5 meg files by only about >>> 20 percent. >> One limitation of zip-like archivers is that they compress the >> individual files first and then put them into an archive. If there is >> redundancy between files, you get much better compression if you create >> an archive of uncompressed files and then compress that archive. >> >> This is way I prefer things like .tar.gz or .tar.bz2. >> >> I'll bet someone has written a tool to do that from a Finder contextual >> menu instead of having to learn command-line tools, but I've never >> looked for it. > > GUI Tar is an excellent FREE frontend app to many compression methods. > <http://www.edenwaith.com/products/guitar/> > > "GUI Tar is a wrapper application which acts as the front end to the > 7za, tar, gzip, bzip2, uncompress, unrar, unzip, and zip UNIX utilities. > The operating system itself handles the complicated work, while GUI Tar > provides a pleasant and easy method to interact with these system tools. > GUI Tar is divided into two sections: Extractor and Compressor. > > "GUI Tar Extractor offers the functionality to uncompress and extract > files from archives. The following files can be opened by Extractor: > .7z, .tar, .tgz, .tar.gz, .dmg.gz, .svgz, .gz, .tar.z, .z, .Z, .tar.Z, > .taz, .tbz, .tbz2, .bz, .bz2, .rar, and .zip. > > "GUI Tar Compressor can compress and/or archive a collection of files in > .7z, .bz2, .tar, .tbz, .tgz, .gz, .Z, or .zip formats. Archive files and > folders from multiple locations, instead of being restricted to just one > directory." At the same time, is compression really an issue for many these days? With disk space being cheap, OSes fast, and connections even faster [for many], for myself, the only time I use the contextual menu to zip something is when I want to keep it but make sure it's not activated by accident, either an application or Preference file, usually. -- john mcwilliams
From: David Rogoff on 2 Apr 2010 12:36 On 2010-04-02 08:38:57 -0700, John McWilliams said: > Fred Moore wrote: > > At the same time, is compression really an issue for many these days? > With disk space being cheap, OSes fast, and connections even faster > [for many], for myself, the only time I use the contextual menu to zip > something is when I want to keep it but make sure it's not activated by > accident, either an application or Preference file, usually. I mainly use it to send files to people via email, so the compression is needed. Sometimes, they're financial docs, so I also want the password protection (I know zip's encrytion is pretty weak).
From: dorayme on 2 Apr 2010 14:02 In article <hp532h$ej4$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, John McWilliams <jpmcw(a)comcast.net> wrote: > At the same time, is compression really an issue for many these days? > With disk space being cheap, OSes fast, and connections even faster [for > many], for myself, the only time I use the contextual menu to zip > something is when I want to keep it but make sure it's not activated by > accident, either an application or Preference file, usually. The only considerations are not the cost of disk space: it is a nuisance having to keep shopping and providing for ever bigger HD space. And the relevant connections across the world for the transmission of files is still not so absolutely fast that a few tens or even hundreds of 'saved by compression MB' is not a great convenience and indeed cost saving all around. -- dorayme
From: D Finnigan on 2 Apr 2010 14:20 Robert Montgomery wrote: > Is there still a good, free file compression program? > bzip2 gzip -- Mac GUI Vault - A source for retro Apple II and Macintosh computing. http://macgui.com/vault/
From: Paul Sture on 2 Apr 2010 15:02
In article <hp532h$ej4$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, John McWilliams <jpmcw(a)comcast.net> wrote: > At the same time, is compression really an issue for many these days? > With disk space being cheap, OSes fast, and connections even faster [for > many], for myself, the only time I use the contextual menu to zip > something is when I want to keep it but make sure it's not activated by > accident, either an application or Preference file, usually. Well, I have nearly 400 MB on my web server, which compresses into a ~170 MB tar.gz file to download for backup purposes. (Having said that, I've just started using rsync to backup changes and that is faster still. It also gets around incompatibilities between FreeBSD tar and the GNU tar which comes with OS X) -- Paul Sture |