General File Compression
Around ten years ago, computer developers were really interested in the sizes of files and the amount of memory that was being consumed. This is because they were very limited, programs had to be very well optimized in order to work on all machines. As specifications increased and hard drive capacities grew and grew, it has led to people not caring as much about the sizes of files being used. Some people are still on small hard drives, though, so it is something you need to worry about if you’re in this situation. In this article, we’re going to talk about general file compression.
If you’ve been browsing our blog you’ll have seen that we’ve written quite a few pages about compressing specific types of files, involving quite a few techniques. With audio files you might choose to reduce the bitrate of it or reduce the excess silence you can sometimes find at the end of tracks, for images you could also change the format or change the resolution. This is all great, but what do you do about general files such as pieces of software where you aren’t able to do that? You’ll need to use general file compressing methods instead, but don’t worry this is also pretty easy.
The best way of doing this is by placing files into archives. There are a few different types of these that can be created, quite a few tools you can use to create them too! The most common is the ZIP file which can be used to store tons of files in 1, making it easier to store and transfer, plus it usually reduces the file size as a whole too. This is perhaps the best one you can use, although other archive formats do exist. For example, if you wanted to use another one called 7zip, you’d have access to the .7z format which reduces the compatibility but instead reduces the size of the archive even more.
The question is, which of these formats do you use when you want to share them in a P2P network such as Ares Galaxy? Compatibility should always be a big concern of yours, if people can’t extract the files from the archive then you really are wasting your time, it’s the same if you’re trying to download one of these formats too. Whilst small file sizes are always great for you and the other users in the network, it really is no use if people aren’t going to be able to open them without installing extra pieces of software, which of course nobody wants to have to do just for one file. Because of this, we’d probably recommend the standard formats such as ZIP and RAR, both of which are commonly used on the internet.
In conclusion, general file compression is very important in all aspects of computing, especially file sharing networks. Really large files uses up a lot of bandwidth so if it’s possible to get your files smaller it’s a good idea to do that, it’s better for everyone that way, but do remember that it won’t always have a great effect. It depends entirely on the data you’re compressing. Our Ares free download will always show you the file size of what you’re downloading so that you’re aware of what’s going on, we recommend that you look carefully at this so that you don’t go over any internet usage caps that your ISP might have placed on your account.
Tags: compression, rar, zip