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RAR and Other Alternative/Annoying Archival/Compression Formats

I hate when people send me an email with a .rar (or similar non-.zip) attachment.  I realize that rar has some special features that set it apart - but those features are not really very important when you're just talking about sending me a small non-commercial c# project in an email.

I think I will create my own custom compressed archival format, and start sending out .lnc files (which doesn't stand for "lance", but something creative that implies its the worst compression format ever, like "loco nasty compression" or "like...not compressed" or "lame non-zip creation") instead of .rar or .zip.  Then everyone who wants to open one of my email attachments will have to download and install my software. 

And when someone replies back to me and says - "Can you send me a zip instead of an lnc?"  I'll just be like "What??  You're still using zip?  Ugh.  Dude download WinLNC already, its 2008.  I sure hope you're not using that 'compressed folders' crap that is built into Windows like all the other Microsoft sheep."  Then I'll post information on the WinLNC website about buying the WinLNC subscription package, and false testimonials from all my "customers" raving about how WinLNC is soooo much better than all the other available tools.  Then I'll upload the free trial version to download.com and similar sites and write a script that automatically passes through anonymizing proxies and downloads my software once every 5 minutes. 

Before my PowerShell friends think they're immune, soon to follow will be the read-lnc and write-lnc cmdlets.

Are you thinking the same thing I'm thinking, Pinky?  I'm going to take over the world [of compressed archives]!

Print | posted on Friday, July 25, 2008 11:23 AM

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# re: RAR and Other Alternative/Annoying Archival/Compression Formats

Left by Hal Rottenberg at 8/12/2008 9:21 AM
Gravatar To be fair, there are better ways to decompress files than compressed folders. :)

# re: RAR and Other Alternative/Annoying Archival/Compression Formats

Left by Lance at 8/12/2008 9:26 AM
Gravatar Depending on exactly what you're doing? Yes, there are other ways. But for just small archives, for Windows XP/Vista users? Just a .zip is the most convenient way. No special functionality needed for these simple cases.

# re: RAR and Other Alternative/Annoying Archival/Compression Formats

Left by Aaron Kempf at 8/16/2008 2:23 PM
Gravatar dude you're a sheep.

Use winrar. Compression ratio is frequently TWICE as good as Zip.

I can compress backups- using database servers-- to a 20:1 compression ratio sometimes.. using WinRar.. and I swear winzip doesn't give me a 6x compression ratio for the same file.

So the answer to the proverbial 'how do you transfer 1tb database over a T1 in 24 hours' involves:

a) breaking it into multiple files using winrar
b) one level up on the compression ratio.. maybe even 2 (most database servers these days- in the mid level- would be 4x4, so it should be able to handle it quickly)
c) start moving portions of the file across the T1
d) start uncompressing when you start getting pieces.

I just don't think that WinZip would be able to match this-- maybe you should email www.anandtech.com and ask them-- once and for all -- to solve this age-old question.

the point of the matter is that Rar is MUCH better compression ratio for everything that I do.

And I think that-- one of the things that MS should do to make it more palatable- is such that _EVERY_ single place that MS does compression-- from CompressedFolders in Windows to Ooxml in Office to IIS 6.0 HTML compression-- I think that it should be multiplied by something of the scale of directX-- so that-- when IIS 6.0 'is not compressing WinRar strongly' we can plug in our own Rar Format algorithms on both end and benefit from our own compression preferences.

Microsoft literally has 'compression' components in about 20000000 different places.. and I think that taking all the little pieces-- and bringing it together into a DirectX like model-- would make a lot more sense.

BECAUSE RAR IS INHERENTLY BETTER THAN ZIP.

More importantly-- if RAR is better than Zip; I should be able to tell Windows to use Rar compression for Intranet applications through IIS 6.0 for example.

Because compression is one of those thnigs-- when we have quad core desktops and our upload speeds are limited to 384mbit--

COMPRESSION BECOMES IMPORTANT.

# re: RAR and Other Alternative/Annoying Archival/Compression Formats

Left by Lance at 8/16/2008 10:33 PM
Gravatar Aaron, obviously you did not bother to read my post before you went completely freaking nutjob. It is good that you love rar so much. I'm sure its great. Its just a waste of my damn time when I'm dealing with a 15k archive.

# re: RAR and Other Alternative/Annoying Archival/Compression Formats

Left by lmao at 1/13/2009 1:19 AM
Gravatar great post dude

# re: RAR and Other Alternative/Annoying Archival/Compression Formats

Left by Phil at 3/5/2009 1:19 PM
Gravatar I hate winrar with a passion. I absolutely hate having to add useless programs to Windows. Nothing worse than having to go through that clunky winrar interface when I could just right click, drag, extract, done. Even worse is how insidious the winrar program is and how it takes over the computer, I don't want to use winrar to unzip .zip files. I could care less how inferior .zips are, hell I would care less if they don't compress anything at all. They could be larger than uncompressed for all I care. I just want to right click, extract, done, no extra gui crap. Take your superior compression and stuff it.

# re: RAR and Other Alternative/Annoying Archival/Compression Formats

Left by kok at 11/21/2009 1:12 AM
Gravatar There always crack version of winrar. Pay nothing at all. So don't think everyone is stupid

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