KGB Archiver has promised to be the revolution in compressors, replacing the classic WinZip and WinRar. silviolobo investigated, showcasing this and other programs that promise to compress heavily.
The KGB Archive installer is less than 4MB (3.794 KB), produced by Tomasz Pawlak, and the creator's website is suspended.
The program promises to work on any Windows, but on Windows 7 64bit it only started after enabling "Compatibility Mode".
1st Test! Compressing a DOC file
For this, we chose a file named "Fantasmas.doc", 1.36 MegaB [Word Document (97/2003) DOC], which is an ebook easily found online.
The first results:
Compressed in ZIP with normal compression: 491KB
In ZIP with maximum compression: 489KB
In RAR with normal compression: 432KB
In RAR with Maximum compression: 432KB
Compressing in RAR or ZIP took LESS THAN 1 SECOND.
Now let's compress this same file in KGB
In KGB with normal compression: 297KB (time: 1 minute and 1 second !!!)
In KGB with maximum compression: 286.2KB (time: 1 minute and 10 seconds !!!)
It took over 1 minute to compress a 1.36MB .doc file. This makes the program extremely difficult to use. In preliminary tests with an Intel(R) Dual CPU E2180 @ 2.00GHz 2.00 GHz, RAM 2.00GB, 64-bit Operating System, Windows 7, it takes over 1 hour per Gigabyte in Normal compression mode, which would be good if the compression was relevant for all files. However, compression is only considerable for text and mixed files (txt, doc, rtf). For video, image, and audio files, the gain is insignificant, and the process can take hours. See the next test:
2nd Test: Compressing a 1.26 MB WMV Video
KGB normal: 1.08 MB, 1 minute and 9 seconds
Zip normal: 1.15 MB, less than 1 second
Rar normal: 1.10 MB, less than 1 second
3rd Test: Compressing an empty file "abc.txt" 0 KB
KGB normal: 588 B
ZIP normal: 112 B
RAR normal: 71 B 588 B
Final Result,
KGB Archiver arrived for home users as a great compression promise. However, contrary to what many think, programs like Winrar and Winzip were not outstanding merely for being "relatively efficient"; the main reason for their success is that these programs are, above all, fast. KGB Archiver uses (or used, as it seems to have been abandoned by its creator) a PAQ algorithm, a well-known and highly awarded GNU, developed for "lossless" compression.
On Wikipedia (IN ENGLISH), you can find the history of the PAQ Algorithm's evolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAQ
Discover the most important compressors:
SUPER Compression:
- PAQ8o
- WinRK
- UDA
- Durilca
- SLIM
MEDIUM Compression:
- WinRK
- FreeArc
- LPAQ
- CCMX
- FreeArc
- 7-zip
- Squeez
- UHARC
FAST Compression:
- SBC
- WinRar
- WinZip
KGB Archiver has promised to be the revolution in compressors, replacing the classic WinZip and WinRar. silviolobo investigated, showcasing this and other programs that promise to compress heavily.
The KGB Archive installer is less than 4MB (3.794 KB), produced by Tomasz Pawlak, and the creator's website is suspended.
The program promises to work on any Windows, but on Windows 7 64bit it only started after enabling "Compatibility Mode".
1st Test! Compressing a DOC file
For this, we chose a file named "Fantasmas.doc", 1.36 MegaB [Word Document (97/2003) DOC], which is an ebook easily found online.
The first results:
Compressed in ZIP with normal compression: 491KB
In ZIP with maximum compression: 489KB
In RAR with normal compression: 432KB
In RAR with Maximum compression: 432KB
Compressing in RAR or ZIP took LESS THAN 1 SECOND.
Now let's compress this same file in KGB
In KGB with normal compression: 297KB (time: 1 minute and 1 second !!!)
In KGB with maximum compression: 286.2KB (time: 1 minute and 10 seconds !!!)
It took over 1 minute to compress a 1.36MB .doc file. This makes the program extremely difficult to use. In preliminary tests with an Intel(R) Dual CPU E2180 @ 2.00GHz 2.00 GHz, RAM 2.00GB, 64-bit Operating System, Windows 7, it takes over 1 hour per Gigabyte in Normal compression mode, which would be good if the compression was relevant for all files. However, compression is only considerable for text and mixed files (txt, doc, rtf). For video, image, and audio files, the gain is insignificant, and the process can take hours. See the next test:
2nd Test: Compressing a 1.26 MB WMV Video
KGB normal: 1.08 MB, 1 minute and 9 seconds
Zip normal: 1.15 MB, less than 1 second
Rar normal: 1.10 MB, less than 1 second
3rd Test: Compressing an empty file "abc.txt" 0 KB
KGB normal: 588 B
ZIP normal: 112 B
RAR normal: 71 B 588 B
Final Result,
KGB Archiver arrived for home users as a great compression promise. However, contrary to what many think, programs like Winrar and Winzip were not outstanding merely for being "relatively efficient"; the main reason for their success is that these programs are, above all, fast. KGB Archiver uses (or used, as it seems to have been abandoned by its creator) a PAQ algorithm, a well-known and highly awarded GNU, developed for "lossless" compression.
On Wikipedia (IN ENGLISH), you can find the history of the PAQ Algorithm's evolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAQ
Discover the most important compressors:
SUPER Compression:
- PAQ8o
- WinRK
- UDA
- Durilca
- SLIM
MEDIUM Compression:
- WinRK
- FreeArc
- LPAQ
- CCMX
- FreeArc
- 7-zip
- Squeez
- UHARC
FAST Compression:
- SBC
- WinRar
- WinZip
