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From: reichert@dino.ulowell.edu (Bastard)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Compressors
Message-ID: <1991Jun24.065433.10109@ulowell.ulowell.edu>
Date: 24 Jun 91 06:54:33 GMT
References: <10002@discus.technion.ac.il>
Sender: usenet@ulowell.ulowell.edu (News manager)
Organization: University of Lowell, CPE
Lines: 25

In article <10002@discus.technion.ac.il> nyh@GAUSS.TECHNION.AC.IL (Nadav Har'El) writes:
>I have tested 10 of the most availiable compressors (all of which can be
>downloaded from garbo.uwasa.fi). For the archived files I arbitarily chose
>pak's distribution file, which contains docs,exes, and other files, all
>together 203497 bytes. I've classified the compressors by the number of
>bytes after the compression.
>
>  [Extensive table of results]
>
>Therefore, I suggest ftp sites should use the arj format, instead any of the
>others. I know it is hard work converting all the files to arj, so the sites
>can make all new archives in the arj format.

Comprehensive though this experiment was, another usful attribute of various
compressors is their speed.  I realize that sheer size is definitely the
_biggest_ (no joke intended) factor, but as an end user, slow decompressions
grate on my nerves.

Out of curiosity: I know that some of the tested compressors have options for
optimizing for size vs. speed.  Were the appropriate options used for these
tests?
bastard@dragon.cpe.ulowell.cpu			   Brian (you Bastard) Reichert

USnail: 85 Gershom Ave. #2
	Lowell, MA 01854		"Intel architecture: the left hand path"