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What is file compression? Differences between compression formats and…

You may have questions about compressing files (converting them to rar, zip, and… formats). Questions such as:

What is the purpose of file compression?
How do files and folders fit into one file?
What is the difference between different compression formats?
Why sometimes by compressing files, does the size of the compressed file increase?! Or even sometimes, it does not change at all ?!
Why do some sites, such as computer game download sites, but the game in several parts with one or two gigabytes for download and do not put it as a complete part ?!
How does compression software reduce the size of files ?!

There is a variety of software for compressing files; The most widely used are WinRAR for Windows (PC) and RAR for Android. But in this article, we will examine how to install 7zip software.

What is compression?

In compression, one or more files or folders are selected together and stored in a single file.

Can a file be inserted into another file ?! How does a folder fit into a file?

Each file is nothing but data. Bytes that are put together to form the information of a file. When a zip file is created, the zip file, depending on its format, naturally has a predefined structure and structure. On the other hand, like the other files (jpg, mp4, and…), this zip file is nothing but data.

This zip file contains the bytes or data of each selected file. Consider a kitchen with a variety of dishes and utensils; Some of these utensils are used to put other utensils in them. Now, these compressed files also have the structure and structure of storing the bytes of each file separately and becoming a single file; then, at another time, those files can be extracted from this zip file and used.

We now get to the folders; How do these things, which are not files, fit into a zip file ?!

Indeed, a folder is not a file; Folders are ways to sort and separate files. When we put a folder in a zip file; That zip file creates categories according to that folder and the contents inside.

In some zipped file formats, it is possible to insert any file with any format; But in others, it is not possible. For example, rar and zip are free to put anything inside; But a GIF or animated image file can only contain images. If we put other things inside the gif, it is no longer out of its original structure and is not a gif format.

Why compress? What is the purpose of compression?

The main purposes of compressing files are:

• Convert multiple files and folders into a single file. For easy transport, easy maintenance, and…
• Encryption on files
• Shrink files

For these, I will give an example in the real world; imagine going on a trip. Now you have to move different items; All kinds of clothes, sanitary ware and…! Now, in your opinion, can you take all this with you one by one ?! What do you think of Rajab, a travel bag or suitcase ?! So it can be said that compression has the same meaning and plays the role of a bag and suitcase in the computer (puts several items in one place; it can be locked on the suitcase; the density is reduced). We will expand this example later.

What is the difference between different compression formats?

As you know, the difference between formats is in their structure and structure. According to the previous example, there are naturally different travel bags and suitcases. Aside from that, even the way items are arranged in the same bag and luggage is not the same! Sometimes, we easily fit ten items in a bag with one arrangement, but 5 of them may be difficult to fit in this bag or suitcase with a different arrangement. So even with settings, a rar file may be smaller than before.

On the other hand, each suitcase has its characteristics; One of them can be easily opened and the other easily; One can have a strong lock on it; But no one else. And we use the luggage we want according to our needs.

Why sometimes does the size of the files not decrease with compression and increases?

First, not all compression formats are used to shrink files; Secondly, some of them, for some reason, sometimes can not reduce the volume and sometimes even a little more. But what is the reason ?!

Compression settings related to that format (such as rar or zip) to shrink may not be applied correctly. For example, the RAR format includes a variety of methods for compressing files; One of these is used only for storage and has nothing to do with volume.

And other cases make it smaller and smaller, respectively. Also, the stronger the methods used to reduce the volume, the longer the compression time will be because the software has to run more complex algorithms. Sometimes compression algorithms have difficulty shrinking a file. Hence, either the compressed file size does not matter; Or even more; The reason for this increase is also due to the presence of bytes related to the compressed file.

And the next point is why some sites, for example, put a 100 GB game in 2, 3, or 4 GB parts for download ?!

That’s a good question. Why do some sites not put the game download the file as a single zip file for download ?! What does it mean to be a partition of a compressed file ?!

Some zip files can be converted into disruptive files. For example, you can convert multiple files to a rar compressed file; And specify that if the compressed file size exceeded a certain size, the rest of the information would be contained in another compressed file, which is a continuation of the previous file.

But what is the purpose of this work ?!

Imagine you will transfer 100 GB of file to your friend by compression through a flash memory, But your flash has only 16 gigs of space! Therefore, if the compressed file is fragmented, you can copy and transfer several pieces of it to the flash at a time. But what does this have to do with downloading ?! You might say that they also put it in parts for download for this purpose. Of course, this can also be the case; But the main goal is something else!

Imagine a 100 gig zip file for download:

• Wouldn’t you be angry if, after downloading 50 GB, everything you downloaded was deleted in any way possible ?! But if, for example, it is a 2GB partition, you have now downloaded 25 parts!
• Wouldn’t you be angry if, after downloading the full 100 GB file, the file was corrupted or incomplete for any reason? Of course, sometimes this can be corrected, but in a 100 GB file, which is very large,

doing so is tedious and likely to fail. But if you had downloaded it in pieces, it might have been just a bad download.

What is compression waste, and how does it work?

Lossy compression reduces file size by removing unnecessary pieces of information. This method is common in the video, video, and audio formats, where the full display of source media is unnecessary.
Many common formats for this type of media use poor compression. MP3 and JPEG are two popular examples.

An MP3 does not contain all the audio information from the original recording; instead, it produces sounds that humans cannot hear. You will not notice them anyway, so deleting this information will reduce the file size and have no problem.

Likewise, JPEGs delete non-critical parts of images, such as in an image containing a blue sky. JPEG compression may change all-sky pixels to one or two shades of blue instead of dozens of different shades.

However, the more you compress a file, the more significant the quality loss. Compression is a waste of time when a file contains more information than you need for your purposes.
For example, let’s say you have a huge RAW image file.

Although you may want to keep this quality when printing an image on a large banner, uploading a RAW file to Facebook is useless. The image contains a lot of data that is not visible when viewed on social media sites. High-quality JPEG image compression draws some information, but the image looks almost identical to the naked eye.

Compression with waste in general use

As mentioned, lossy compression is great for most forms of media. For this reason, it is crucial for companies like Spotify and Netflix that are constantly transferring huge amounts of information.
Reducing file size as much as possible while maintaining quality makes their performance more efficient.

Can you imagine what would happen if any YouTube video were saved and transferred in its original uncompressed format? But lossy compression does not work well for files with very important information. For example, using compression at the expense of a text file or spreadsheet would result in waste output. You really can not pull anything out without seriously damaging the final product.

When saving in worn form, you can often adjust the quality level. For example, many image editors have a slider to select JPEG quality from 0-100.

What is lossless compression, and how does it work?

Lossless compression is a way to reduce the file size to recover the original file completely. Unlike lossy compression, it does not extract any information. Instead, lossless compression essentially works by eliminating redundancy.

Compression without loss in everyday use

Lossless compression is important when you cannot delete any of the original files. This is the answer if you’ve been curious about how ZIP files work. It uses harmless compression when creating a ZIP file from an executable program in Windows. ZIP file compression is a more efficient way to save a program.

But when you decompress it and decompress it, all the basic information is there. Suppose you use waste compression to compress components. The unzipped version will be damaged and unusable. Common harmless formats include PNG for images, FLAC for audio, and ZIP. Loss-free formats are rare for movies because they take up a lot of space.

When to use compression without loss or with loss?

Now that we have considered both forms of files, you may be wondering when to use which one. As it turns out, there is no better kind of compression; it all depends on what we want to compress. In general, use lossless compression when you want a complete source version.

When an incomplete version is good enough, you should use lossy compression. Later, you may want to put your music on your phone or an old MP3 player so you can listen to it. You probably do not care if your music is of high quality.

So you can convert FLAC files to MP3. This gives you an audio file that is still quite audible but does not fit as well as your mobile space. The quality of the converted MP3 from FLAC will be as high as if you wanted to make the compressed MP3 right from the original CD.

The data type presented in a file can also indicate the best compression type because PNG images use harmless compression. They offer small file sizes for images with a large uniform space, such as computer screen images. However, you will find that PNGs take up more space when they represent the humorous sound of colors in real-world photos.

Recommendations on file compression

As we have seen, converting lossless formats to waste is just as good as converting a lossless format to another. However, you should never convert a lossless format to a wasteless one, and you should be careful not to convert a lossless format to another form.

Turning a wasteful format into a wasteful one is just a waste of space. Remember that it eliminates formats with data loss. It is impossible to recover this data. Say you have a 3MB MP3 file. Converting it to FLAC may result in a 30MB file, but that 30MB contains accurate sounds made by much smaller MP3s.

Returning to a harmless format does not recover data from which MP3 compression was extracted. Finally, as mentioned earlier, converting a waste format to another form (or storing it repeatedly in the same format) reduces the quality. You lose more detail every time you apply poor compression. This is getting more and more attention to spoil the original case.

Last point about compression

Now you know how to save a file smaller than your original format. And how you can choose the best method for your needs. Of course, algorithms decide how lost data is and how the best data can be stored in lossless compression.

What is the 7-Zip? And what is its use?

The 7-zip standard is a compressed archive format with a higher speed than other compression formats. An experiment conducted between different types of compression formats ranked first, which is discussed in this article.

7z is a compressed archive file format that supports several different algorithms for data compression, encryption, and preprocessing. The 7z format was first compactly implemented and then presented by the 7-Zip standard.

This article aims to look at the performance and compression rate of four lesser-known file archiving and compression tools: 7-Zip, WinRAR, WinZip, and MagicRAR. The 7-zip standard has the best performance and is the ultimate tool for archiving and compressing files.

If priority is given to the least archived files, the 7-zip standard does this faster than the other three compression tools. If the priority is for the shortest archiving time, the 7-zip standard also produces smaller files. So, no matter the most important aspect of file compression, the 7-zip standard is a great choice over other compression programs like Winzip.

 

WinRAR and WinZip can fully match the 7-zip standard compression speed, as zip-7 is very fast and has the advantage of supporting the two most common compression formats, ZIP and RAR.

While one can argue in favor of WinRAR and WinZip based on their compression formats, the actual performance shows no significant difference. The fact is that each of these archiving and compression tools can support each other in addition to a large number of templates. But in the end, old habits are hard to break, and it’s still a good idea to share archives as a ZIP file.

The 7-zip standard is a new archive format with a high compression ratio.

Main features of the 7-zip standard

• Open architecture
• High compression ratio
• Strong encryption AES-256
• Ability to use any method of compression, conversion, or encryption
• Supports files up to 16 billion GB in size
• Unicode file names
• Solid compression

Currently available for large hard drives, gigabyte-measured flash drives, and high-speed broadband and for loading large files on websites and for those who pay for bandwidth or are slow; Compression is an important issue. Connections file sizes for download are also very significant.

The 7-zip standard compresses most file types to its 7z format better than standard Zip. How well it does, depends a lot on the compressed files. According to tests and experiments performed between different compression software, Igor Pavlov stated:

The compression ratio results are highly dependent on the data used for the experiment. Usually, 7-Zip standard 7x Zip compression is 30-70% better than Zip format. And 7-Zip compression with zipping 2-10 format is better than most Zip-compatible programs.

How to install 7-Zip

Introduction

If you desire to create some file in your computer smaller (e.g., for sending by e-mail), one of the most common methods is compression. Particularly the zip compression, so-called “zipping.” Zipping will compress an actual file into a smaller (compressed) zip file (extension *.zip). Furthermore, more files can be compressed into one zip file. You can guess zipping as filling your clothes (original files) into one “space bag” (zip file). Sending the one zipped file (with more original files within) by e-mail is then easier than sending these files individually.

You can construct a zip file with any zip utility. There are several such utilities. We will use utility 7-Zip because it’s excessively easy and free open source software without any costs. Let’s begin with the installation.

• Download 7-Zip installation file
• Install 7-Zip
• First Start of the 7-Zip
• Association of the file types

Download 7-Zip installation file

First, you must download the 7-Zip installation file for your separate System. You most likely need to download the .exe file for the 32-bit System. Only go to http://www.7-zip.org and download this version to a local folder in your computer (for example, to folder Desktop).

Install 7-Zip

Now, the installation file should be downloaded with the name 7zXXX.exe on your desktop (where XXX is a number of the current version). If you downloaded it to any other folder, find it with Windows Explorer. Do you have it? Ok. Now double click on that file. The installation will begin. As the first step of the installation, you can Select Install Location.

 

The pre-selected folder is ok in most circumstances. So click on Install, and the installation will proceed. Then click on Finish. 7-Zip is installed now. It’s rather effortless.

First Start of the 7-Zip

If everything ran fine with the installation, you have the new program group in the Start > Programs > 7-Zip. Go there and click on 7-Zip File Manager. The 7-Zip utility will begin for the first time! You can see its essential window.

Association of the file types

It’s a good method to have associated a certain file type with a particular application that can take this file. For setting up of these associations for 7-Zip files run 7-Zip (Start > Programs > 7-Zip > 7-Zip File Manager) and then click on Tools > Options.

New Options window occurs. On the first tab, called System, you can associate the 7-Zip utility with several file kinds. We suggest associating all file kinds by clicking on the “Select all” button and the OK button. You can glance at other settings too.

Now you have associated all the files which 7-Zip can take. And ultimately, 7-Zip is successfully installed.

File association not working?

If you have Windows 7 or Windows 8, you have to have administrator’s support for files association; otherwise, the association won’t work. To run 7-Zip as manager, click Start and then right-click to 7-Zip. In the context menu, select Run as administrator. Then changing of file associations in the last phase will be endless.

It’s Completed. Congratulations!

Therefore You have to restart your computer if you have Windows 7 or Windows 8 to finish all differences. After restart, you’ll have the context menu of Windows Explorer with 7-Zip added.