What are different Compressed File Formats?
Here are a number of compressed file formats that are mostly used:
- .ARC: A well-known historical compression format that was widespread during the personal computer era and was introduced by SEA. An ARC file is an archive, a file that consists of multiple files packed into a single compressed file.
- .ARJ: ARJ developed by Robert K. Jung was the best in the 1990s. It exhibits high compression ratios among other attributes, and supports self-extracting archives. ARJ files are one of the most known formats used for software distribution and data backup.
- .GZ: The GZ format, which is popularly known as Gzip, is very common among Unix and Linux environments. The DEFLATE algorithm is used by Gzip to compress data files or flows. It is commonly employed together with TAR (.tar.gz), which creates compressed archives of full directories.
- .HQX: HQX (also known as BinHex) is a program dedicated to making ASCII representation of binary data. This encoding works best for the transmission of binary information in such environments, which can otherwise destroy such data such as e-mail transmission systems.
- .RAR: RAR is a renowned compression format with impressive compression ratios created by Eugene Roshal. The common .RAR file, known for high compression with password protection and error recovery, is another example.
- .SIT: An example is the .SIT format, otherwise known as StuffIt, which is a popular compression format that was developed by Aladdin Systems, especially for macOS and Mac machines. SIT files used to compress and archive files in Apple’s Operating System.
- .TAR: The TAR format, which is short for Tape Archive, is a file packaging rather than compression format. It is usually combined with compression algorithms like Gzip or Bzip2 to form compressed archive, composed of many files and folders into one file.
- .ZIP: One of the popular compression format which is often used, .ZIP files are popular because they can be easily opened in any operating system. Phil Katz designed .ZIP compression which is usually utilised for file archiving and distribution.
Compressed File Formats
The compressed file format has become an indispensable part of our digital environment, enabling the compression and transmission of large amounts of data while saving precious space in storage. This article will explore some of the common compressed file formats, understand their nature, what they are used for, advantages, disadvantages, and security issues.
Table of Content
- What are different Compressed File Formats?
- Uses of Compressed File Formats
- How To Run the compressed files
- Benefits of Compressed File Formats
- Limitations of Compressed File Formats
- Applications that use Compressed File Formats
- Malware Concerns
- Conclusion