Like when you send a .7z instead of a .zip or .rar to a friend or a teacher because that's what your computer has installed and they're like "Oh No, not one of those, now I have to install 7Zip" even though the same program that opens .rar also opens .7z I feel like people are way more annoyed when they receive a .7z

  • Cargon@lemmy.ml
    ·
    11 months ago

    Mostly just different algorithms that can achieve greater compaction under different data circumstances.

    There are an infinite number of compression algorithms. The trick is to find ones that result in a smaller file for the data you have, which will have some non-random pattern to it.

    The choices we think of today (gz, bz2, zstd, etc.) are fairly general purpose, but sometimes you find a data file that compresses significantly more with a particular algorithm.

    • Boinketh@lemm.ee
      ·
      11 months ago

      Hence compressed file formats like PNG, MP3/4, etc for different kinds of compressible media. Compression is all about representing data in an often dynamically sized latent space such that the majority of the data being sent needs a latent space that is much smaller than the full representation of the data.

    • Sentinian@lemmy.one
      ·
      11 months ago

      I guess that would explain why I never use other formats, the compression itself isnt important to me, just being able to send a folder of files without a bunch of uploads