Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!willett!dwp
From: dwp@willett.UUCP (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Automatic Disk Compressors?
Message-ID: <1059.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jun 90 02:44:31 GMT
References: <3841@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Organization: Latest link in the ForthNet chain.  (Pgh, PA)
Lines: 37


In <3841@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>, baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes:

> Does anybody know of a good automatic disk compressor?  I saw an
> ad for a program called "Squish Plus" and it read as follows:
> 
> This program was selling for $99.95.  Has anyone used this program,
> and how do you like it?  Are there any other similiar programs?
> Thanks in advance for any responses.

Hi,
	I'm currently using Squish Plus version 2.00.  I am satisfied.
I use it to keep my news "compressed".  I get about 30-35% more space
that way.  Shortly after I upgraded to 2.00 I got a call from the someone
at Sundog Software asking me how it was working.  I told them that I was
dissapointed with the compression ratio.  After a short discussion in which
I explained my application, they told me that the ratio I was getting is
about what would be expected.  Apparently Squish Plus does much better on
lots of little files than on a few monster files.  I have tested that.
I chose Squish Plus over some other products (whose names escape me at the
moment) because it offers on the fly compression/decompression.  The other
software I looked at (hardly exhaustive, but...) would decompress in place,
so you'd have to have free space available for the decompressed version.
Granted, with Squish Plus you have to have a special "disk" file that is
the place where files are kept.  It has its own drive letter.  Version
2.00 will let you expand this "disk" file after its been created.  I don't
think (but its been a while since I read the manual) that it will let you
shrink it.  I like it because even though it is slower, I don't need to
have the extra disk space to hold the "unexpanded" version while I'm using
it.  For news, its fine.  (I don't recall how much I paid initially tho').
If you're interested in more details about "what" it does (I don't know
"how" and don't much care), let me know.
		-Doug

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