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Why 7Z not RAR or ZIP?

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First post, by Cyberdyne

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Why do you guys use 7ZIP archive format?

I always have to upack and repack them.

ZIP is universal, ok it is old, and not so effective.
RAR is new and effective, and it still has a RAR 32bit DOS extractor.
But what the .... i do with a 7Z files 😁

Ok you can use HXDOS extender and Windows console program, but come on...

I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.

Reply 1 of 27, by dr_st

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It packs better and is completely free. ZIP has lots of free tools, but not all extensions are universal (for example not all unpackers can handle encrypted archives) + it is not the best in terms of compression ratio. RAR is better but isn't free.

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Reply 3 of 27, by cyclone3d

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dr_st wrote:

It packs better and is completely free. ZIP has lots of free tools, but not all extensions are universal (for example not all unpackers can handle encrypted archives) + it is not the best in terms of compression ratio. RAR is better but isn't free.

7ZIP can make ZIP archives. I generally use the ZIP format as it is more universal and newer Windows has included ZIP support.

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Reply 4 of 27, by gerwin

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All seem to have their place:
.ZIP = Well supported, very fast, reasonable compression, no secure password encryption, 4GB size limit.
.RAR = In the middle between .ZIP and .7Z in speed and compression, secure password encryption.
.7Z = Usually the best compression, but terribly slow of you want to extract just one file from a bigger archive.

I use .7Z only for big archives / archives which I don't expect to access much. Or when .7Z seems to do a much better job with the compression: this varies a lot between what is to be archived.

There seems to be an update to the .RAR format which prevents an older version like WinRAR 3.93 (2010) to unpack some archives.

Where did .ARJ go? That is what I used in the 90s 🤣

edit: 2 typos.

Last edited by gerwin on 2017-09-27, 19:46. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 5 of 27, by Scali

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collector wrote:

Why is this in DOS?

I think his point is that some DOS software is distributed in 7Z-form, but there are no 7-zip tools for DOS?

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Reply 6 of 27, by Azarien

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gerwin wrote:

.7Z = Usually the best compression, but terribly slow of you want to extract just one file from a bigger archive.

This depends on the "solid block size" which has an absurdly high default value. RAR also has an option to create "solid" archives.

Just set the solid block size to something resonable (several MB instead of several GB) and you'll have fast decompression of single files.

Scali wrote:

I think his point is that some DOS software is distributed in 7Z-form, but there are no 7-zip tools for DOS?

7-zip for DOS:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/fre … p-archiver.html

Reply 7 of 27, by Osprey

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It puzzles me when people upload archives for others in 7zip format, particularly smaller ones (but even large ones when the data is already compressed). They're thinking too much about size and too little about convenience. I often zip up files that I upload for others and the option is always there to save a megabyte or two by using 7zip or RAR, but it's just not worth it to inconvenience many users. I upload things to help people and throwing an obstacle in the path of many doesn't make sense. Even regular 7zip/RAR users sometimes want to open archives on other machines that they have or are setting up and don't have the utility installed on.

Last edited by Osprey on 2017-09-27, 19:08. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 8 of 27, by DosFreak

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Azarien wrote:
Scali wrote:

I think his point is that some DOS software is distributed in 7Z-form, but there are no 7-zip tools for DOS?

7-zip for DOS:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/fre … p-archiver.html

Supposedly HXRT works for the command line ver of 7-zip and mabye doswin32 as well.

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Reply 9 of 27, by Jo22

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Where did .ARJ go? That is what I used in the 90s

For a long time, I wondered the same about *.ARC.. 😉

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Reply 10 of 27, by leileilol

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I kinda miss LHAs and LZHs with self-extractors that aren't as annoying as pkzip. It's still the standard in Japan where it originated however

Rar's more popular in Europe for some reason *cough*disk spanning for sneaker nets*cough*

7zip unfortunately had format changes and regressions to older 7zip utilities to extract 7zs so the userbase is a bit fragmented.

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Reply 11 of 27, by Jo22

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7Zip always reminds me of old 7plus, a "compression" (packer/extractor) used for packet-radio..

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Reply 12 of 27, by dr_st

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Osprey wrote:

It puzzles me when people upload archives for others in 7zip format, particularly smaller ones (but even large ones when the data is already compressed). They're thinking too much about size and too little about convenience.

I agree.

cyclone3d wrote:

7ZIP can make ZIP archives. I generally use the ZIP format as it is more universal and newer Windows has included ZIP support.

Except I think even newer Windows cannot unpack password-protected archives (or maybe some of them, depending on the encryption used).

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Reply 14 of 27, by Cyberdyne

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Dude, there were many formats, but come on, at least i am A DOS person, so RAR32(3.9) or RAR16(2.50), ARJ, ZIP, ZOO, ACE .... for me thank you 😀

I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.

Reply 15 of 27, by Scali

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Cyberdyne wrote:

Dude, there were many formats, but come on, at least i am A DOS person, so RAR32(3.9) or RAR16(2.50), ARJ, ZIP, ZOO, ACE .... for me thank you 😀

You forgot LHA 😀

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Reply 16 of 27, by Osprey

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I have fond memories of PAR from the Usenet days. I don't remember if it applied its own compression algorithm, but it was an archive format that was great for recovery. I miss being able to reconstruct missing volumes that I couldn't download.

Reply 17 of 27, by Errius

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Exotic old compression systems are interesting. I recently came across the ECM format for the first time, which compressed CD images by removing error correction data. This seems to provide about 4% compression. I guess that was a big deal in the dialup days.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 18 of 27, by Joey_sw

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Scali wrote:
Cyberdyne wrote:

Dude, there were many formats, but come on, at least i am A DOS person, so RAR32(3.9) or RAR16(2.50), ARJ, ZIP, ZOO, ACE .... for me thank you 😀

You forgot LHA 😀

A friend of mine loves .JAR, but i stick with .RAR.
I'm pretty sure that Java JAR (which esssentialy are just standard zip format) are haphazardly branded without knowning the existance of aforementioned JAR format.

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Reply 19 of 27, by VileR

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Bah, only SQ/LBR is true oldskool. 😉

Anyone here who's actually used those formats? Some *really* ancient DOS BBS archives (pre-ARC) come compressed that way.

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