( See me going OT here: http://www.wakachan.net/wcd/kareha.pl/1099974255 )
RAR is gay, discuss.
Gay
1. Of, relating to, or having a sexual orientation to persons of the same sex.
2. Showing or characterized by cheerfulness and lighthearted excitement; merry.
3. Bright or lively, especially in color: a gay, sunny room.
4. Given to social pleasures.
5. Dissolute; licentious.
[Middle English gai, lighthearted, brightly colored]
...what?
RAR > ZIP
If you have a half complete zip, you cant get anything out. If you have a half complete rar, you can at least retrieve most of the data you have of the file. Windows XP fails to fully implement all the standards of zip compression, so stuff that.
I use LZArc for my compression tools. ZIP, RAR etc, and FREEEEEEE.
zip wins for bein ubiquitous. 7zip wins for compression.
I used to like rar a lot, and I still do. It has a very good speed/compression ratio, and the compression is excellent. Yet I rarely archive anything in it anymore, the primary reason being the fluctuating format.
In my opinion, the best method for long-term archival is probably still max zipping an uncompressed zip archive, then using PAR2 on it. Tar+bzip2/gzip+PAR2 will probably also last a long time, and handles a lot of things better than plain zip.
Broken zip?
Using infozip's implementation (godlike), try the "zip -FF" recovery mode. Also, you can use this to make a whole bunch of little zip files into a big one (just append them, and run zip -FF at the end).
And my mention of Zip in XP was just to show that it's everywhere, and you don't even necessarily need to download a tool to use it.
And all of this is uber-dumb since most people use RAR to package already-compressed files.
Anyway, I like 7z now... hopefully it'll catch on. Has everything RAR has, and a more intelligent deflator to boot.
LZArc appears to be godlike. But please refrain from using it to create RAR files others have to deal with... YOU HAVE THE POWER!!!1
959,664 test.7z
1,131,486 test.rar
7zip wins it
uncompressed zip + bzip2 is pretty good, too...
better compression than rar, and zip and bzip2 are more common than 7zip
7.44mb directory of images: (all using max compression setting)
zip = 7.34mb
7z = 7.30mb
rar = 7.29mb
sbc archiver = 7.25mb
7zip fails it!
- 7z's interface is irrational in more ways than one. Sucks.
- zip cannot do multi volumes. Yeech.
- to repair a zip one needs another tool? Failure. Besides, repairing a zip never worked for me, unlike RAR.
- RAR can do multi volumes, repair, have a recovery record added in, etc. etc. It can even repair too-short files. Win win win.
Info-zip is _the_ zip implementation, and it comes with the fixing tool built-in. And you can do multi-volumes by simply breaking them at arbitrary boundaries, then concatenating them end-to-end (thanks to the magic of the -FF).
Or is the stuff too difficult for you to understand?
In which case, just use LZArc:
http://www.wakachan.net/r/src/1100129991320.jpg
God. Please, don't ever use RAR again. It's a pain in the ass to deal with.
Every time I get a zip, I convert it to rar.
But... but... the DIAGRAM!
But... but... the ARROWS! They turn and turn and turn!
>>9
This isn't about WinRAR vs 7z. This is about the formats RAR vs 7zip/zip/sbc/etc.
Zip has always supported multiple volumes. Either that or I'm hallucinating about all the 1.44 floppies I used with my 286.
Another tool is somewhat off, at least for some of us. If you use unix, it's not another tool, it's THE tool for anything to do with zip. And some of us prefer using it in windows too.
Finally, using PAR2 is a PITA, but you cannot seriously compare RAR's repair capabilites with PAR2. If I used RAR, I'd still use PAR2.
>14
>Zip has always supported multiple volumes. Either that or I'm hallucinating about all the 1.44 floppies I used with my 286.
>PAR2
Fair enough. I was talking from a long-term storage perspective, you're talking about distribution.
You're entirely correct about the scanlation distribution problems. I think the main issue with RAR is that the format is not fixed, so if a person has an older version of WinRAR they can still extract the data just fine, but it'll be screaming all the way about bad CRCs.
It's too bad the author hasn't incorporated version data in the rar format, so that software knows when the format isn't necessarily broken but rather newer. In fact, it's exactly this issue that finally made me stop using RAR. Which is a pity.
As for BT, http, etc, I've been bothering the DCC folks for a while about coming up with something better than current DCC. DCC based on rsync would be nice. But while there's work on DCC2, I haven't seen any similar such functionality. Damn it. :'(
Dude, Sling. You're retarded.
It's ONE STEP.
Take a broken zip, press the repair button, done.
I don't understand your problem with that. It's just as good as RAR's recovery abilities.
For long term storage, tar is, IMHO, the best option. Why? It stores everything about your filesystem attributes when it was created. File name case, ownership, everything.
Then you layer on bzip2 and a FEC like PAR2.
I think zip should be definitely used for dist, but 7z should be offered (it's more robust, free, and tends to compress better).
And the zip multi-volume thing DOES WORK with any size volume you want to create. It's just that WinZIP doesn't do it (lots of other tools do).
>long-term storage perspective,
>>18
Hopefully we'll keep getting new media on which to burn stuff every 2 years or so.
I've been dutifully transferring all my old CD-Rs onto DVD-Rs.
When I transfer the next time to Blu-Ray-R or whatever it'll be called, I'll verify the second gen copies against the first, and if there are any descrepancies, toss the the 1st gen (unless the second gen appears corrupted).
Hopefully having multiple generations of the data will insure against unexpected modes of failure.
>It's just that WinZIP doesn't do it
Pretty much all the issues raised here are really quite esoteric. There is, for instance, a far more robust and simple solution to corrupted downloads: download again. Multi-volumes archives are pretty much useless these days as nobody uses floppies anymore. The only people people still using multi-part archives are pirates distributing files over highly unreliable networks. And compression ratios are really a moot point when you're talking about a couple of percent differences between formats, and the transfer of your average zip file takes seconds or minutes at most.
Zip has one thing no other format has: Ubiquity. There are zip implementations for pretty much every platform and programming language available. Many systems of various and sundry kinds have ZIP handling built-in. People have largely stopped using custom archive formats in application, and just use zip (See: Java's .jar files, Mozilla's .jar and .xpi files, Quake 3's .pk3...)
The benefits of using a single, well-known and well-supported archive format far outweighs any marginal benefits an alternative format might have.
...take some of the extra esses in that and move them to the words that need them.
>There is, for instance, a far more robust and simple solution to corrupted downloads: download again.
>The only people people still using multi-part archives are pirates distributing files over highly unreliable networks.
>And compression ratios are really a moot point when you're talking about a couple of percent differences...
>"Damn, that 4-DVDs download is corrupted. No problem, I shall download it again" (...not!)
>Not. I have work files to upload to someone's ftp and his connection is flaky -> multivols. Some people's ftps dont support resume -> multivols. Etc.
>>And compression ratios are really a moot point when you're talking about a couple of percent differences...
>Is this a fact? I have seen amazing compression ratios with 7z - maybe it depends on the type of files? Would any compressor have reached the same level?
Sigh.
No need to sigh. This is geek wankery at its finest! Nothing screams "geek" like arguing over some compression formats. :D
BTW, while I like tar.gz/bz2, one gripe I have about them is that they don't support random access. You have to uncompress the tarball from the beginning before being able to access individual files.
>>BTW, while I like tar.gz/bz2, one gripe I have about them is that they don't support random access.
I will choose to use what I wish for my compression needs; Zip and RAR are standardised compression formats of the web; 7zip is not. It's nice being open and free - but it's not standard - in that sense it is everything that "free software" (free as in freedom not free beer) is all about.
by rar is good; but if you don't wish to use it - then don't but don't complain to others that they do and that they shouldn't if you do your name herein shall be compression evangelist ~_^
Zip is pretty much the larger of the two for standards on the web, with the exception of tar.gz for *nix packages and applications.
The only people I see using RAR are pirates. Sometimes this spills over into manga translations, but this is rare and often shouted down. The only real standards are .zip and .tar.gz, and .tar.gz only ever for Unix stuff.
> The only people I see using RAR are pirates.
Then I'm a proud pirate. Yo-hoo and a bottle of RAR for all.
>>31
RARRRRRRRR?
Also I didn't say I'm not a pirate, but that doesn't mean I use RAR.
"Pirate" is a RIAA term. Any time they release an overpriced crappy song that doesn't sell, it's the fault of the *pirates*.
Can't let the pirrrrates rule the world!
http://www.worth1000.com/cache/contest/contestcache.asp?contest_id=4122&display=photoshop
Thanks to the "pirates", "the first vending machines to sell music downloads are to be introduced in London next month"
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=6815368
"The piracy-hit music industry is also desperate to promote legal digital music services to convert file-sharers into customers."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=6815231
"Britons may soon be buying more music singles over the Internet than the counter"
"Already between 200-250,000 singles are bought via music download services every week in Britain, approaching physical sales that regularly drop below 400,000"
The term "pirate" was used for the warez scene long before the RIAA noticed mp3. But I'll agree that most popular music nowdays is uniformly shit.
The only music I ever buy are random $1 CDs in the bargain bin. If they suck too (they usually do), it cost me little to begin with.
>>35 is good stuff.
"MSN Music to offer GarageBand songs"
http://news.com.com/2110-1027_3-5454439.html?tag=nefd.hed
Yay for MSN Music
