Strange Compression Comparisons

Well, if you're desparate to do bzip2 under windows, or pretty much any other cool GNU thing (find, grep, less, wget, etc) you can download them at ​http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html

C:\Documents and Settings\me>bzip2 —version bzip2, a block-sorting file compressor. Version 1.0.1, 23-June-2000.

• adm

  Aaron D. Marasco wrote:
  
  > OK, a quick test. I just got a PowerPoint presentation. I am not going to mess with dictionary sizes or anything, leaving those default.
  >
  > PPT: 1,440,768 bytes (Original file)
  > ZIP: 1,311,093 (Dunno what did it, I received it this way)
  > RAR: 1,303,276 (RAR 3.20 beta 4, which does the 'new' RAR compression, default setting)
  > RAR: 1,303,241 (Same version, told it MAX compress "m5" command line)
  > ACE: 1,305,286 (2.0 compression, normal)
  > ACE: 1,309,770 (1.0 compression, normal)
  > ACE: 1,305,274 (2.0 compression, max)
  > GZ: 1,311,109 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression)
  > LZH: 1,440,901 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression) (-- this is BIGGER. This surprises me and tells me that PPT may already be compressed?
  > .TAR.GZ: 1,311,614 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression)
  > CAB: 1,304,092 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression)
  > ZIP: 1,310,299 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression)
  > JAR: 1,310,299 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression -- I think .JAR are just renamed .ZIP anyway)
  > BZ2: 1,337,976 (bzip2 Version 1.0.2 - I couldn't see a command line to change compression)
  > GZ: 1,310,209 (gzip -9 gzip 1.3 [1999-12-21]) (-- I've never seen GZIP be smaller than BZ2?!?!?
  >
  > And now sorted:
  > [root@neuvreidaghey shared]# sort -t' ' +1 tempo
  > RAR: 1,303,241 (Same version, told it MAX compress "m5" command line)
  > RAR: 1,303,276 (RAR 3.20 beta 4, which does the 'new' RAR compression, default setting)
  > CAB: 1,304,092 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression)
  > ACE: 1,305,274 (2.0 compression, max)
  > ACE: 1,305,286 (2.0 compression, normal)
  > ACE: 1,309,770 (1.0 compression, normal)
  > GZ: 1,310,209 (gzip -9 gzip 1.3 [1999-12-21]) (-- I've never seen GZIP be smaller than BZ2?!?!?
  > ZIP: 1,310,299 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression)
  > JAR: 1,310,299 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression -- I think .JAR are just renamed .ZIP anyway)
  > ZIP: 1,311,093 (Dunno what did it, I received it this way)
  > GZ: 1,311,109 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression)
  > .TAR.GZ: 1,311,614 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression)
  > BZ2: 1,337,976 (bzip2 Version 1.0.2 - I couldn't see a command line to change compression)
  > PPT: 1,440,768 bytes (Original file)
  > LZH: 1,440,901 (Created by WinACE 2.5 max compression) (-- this is BIGGER. This surprises me and tells me that PPT may already be compressed?
  

I think these are slightly skewed, but RAR just edged out ACE. Again, I think this is a recompression on compressed data. I would doubt that MS-CAB would normally beat ACE. This is not a directory of plaintext. You can even see that ACE can make GZip compat archives, but it was slightly larger than GZip itself. And ACE also made a smaller ZIP file than what I assume was WinZip.

And since I already bought WinACE, it's good enough.