Talk:7-Zip

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[edit] volume support seems misleading

This looks wrong:-

  • 7-Zip flexibly supports volumes of dynamically variable sizes, useful for backups on removable media such as writable CDs and DVDs.

And should instead be:-

  • 7-Zip supports volumes of arbitrary sizes, useful for backups on removable media such as writable CDs and DVDs (but not tapes).

The words "flexibly" and "dynamically variable" incorrect suggest that it can somehow figure stuff out itself, or adjust on-the-fly. I can't see any evidence that it can do this. Also:- http://www.bugaco.com/7zip/MANUAL/switches/volume.htm note that if creating volumes, it needs to be able to re-write to them all - so it can't actually write directly to CDs or DVDs, and can't handle tapes at all.

203.206.137.129 (talk) 12:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removing two items

I'm going to remove the following two items from the featurelist:

  • Fast compression and decompression
  • Plugin for FAR Manager

The first seems to purely belong in a product advertisment, not an encyclopedia. The second (the FAR thing) I just don't understand (yeah, I'm being a fascist and taking it out). If someone can explain what this is then it might be okay to replace it (but it needs a decent english sentence explaining it, not just a bulletpoint). -- Finlay McWalter 00:20, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

FAR is a filemanager from rarlabs.com, similar to Midnight Commander. Also we have an article on plugins.

[edit] PowerArchiver

I added the external link to PowerArchiver because its how I personally discovered 7Zip. I found PowerArchiver (and thus 7Zip) by accident while looking for a GUI frontend for bzip2 for Windows. My opinion is that PowerArchiver is important in the spread of 7Zip as an example of Free/Open Source Software to show to Windows users. Another good app for this purpose is Firefox. I made a lengthier argument in my blog.

Does this make my addition POV (and is my use of Wiki slang correct? n00b alert, sorry :o) )?

I also discovered AvanceCOMP while meta-researching 7Zip within Wikipedia. My question is which one came first: 7Zip or AdvanceCOMP? -- Lemi4 20:01, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Okay then since Power Archiver has been removed, then has any other program (either open or closed) supported the 7z format? Because it is my (perhaps premature) deduction that Power Archiver was the first program outside of 7-Zip itself to support the format (which makes Power Archiver significant in the historical development of 7-Zip) --Lemi4 18:45, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are many. See comparison of file archivers.

[edit] Support in Gnome

This CVS checkin suggests that Gnome 2.10 (sheduled release 2005-03-09) will also have 7-Zip support.

2.14 doesn't seem to have any support, however p7zip provides it. - bruce89 15:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 7zip compresses much better than bzip2

7zip compresses much better than bzip2; using my own open source project as input (which is mainly ASCII files, but we have a .pdf file in there), the bzip2 file was 737967 bytes long, the rzip file was 602539 bytes long, and the 7-zip file was 564453 or 566981 bytes long, depending on whether I tarred it before compressing. Samboy 02:58, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there any obvious reason why it is not used instead of bzip2 and tar.gz in Linux Package management systems? --85.212.16.35 19:35, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It isn't nearly as ubiquitous (being 5-10 years newer, developed on win32 first & with *nix versions as an afterthought, and not being embraced by GNU (for example, not being supported explicitly by tar). --Karnesky 20:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect information

This statement is incorrect: It is the first archiver to offer a special 64-bit version for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Squeez (www.speedproject.de) was the first to offer a native x64 archiver!

Correct. x64 squeez beta: 04-2005, stable 05-2005; x64 7-zip beta:07-2005, stable 12-2005. -- Karnesky 15:57, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What does the 7 stand for?

It would be nice to have a "trivia" section that explained what the 7 stands for, either here or in the 7z article. -- wr 9-feb-2006

Re: It stands for nothing, obviously. zip stands for zip (compressing method) and 7 stands for 7 (lucky number). No need in "Trivia" section, maybe only "Trivial" instead... --Yuriy, 17 Mar 2006

Re: If you are interested what Igor himself says about it, see: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1429172&forum_id=45797:

Now I don't remember reasons for such name (it was in 1998). Maybe there was thought that starting from "7" allows to be in first places in lists sorted by name. (Igor Pavlov, 2006-01-27 03:53)

--84.142.191.237 10:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Size limits?

What are the system limits when using 7zip ie max size of files, largest file to zip, max size of archive. Is this OS specific? Does it vary between 7zip and zip format?

I can't see this in the 7-zip docs.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Newschapmj1 (talk • contribs).

It is partly file system dependent. FAT32 has a max file size of 4 gigabyte. NTFS has a max file size of 16 terabyte. 7-Zip or 7z might have some limit too though. If you look at the 7z article, you see that it mentions that it can handle up to approx 16 exabytes. -- Frap 17:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
The zip standard is limited to 4 GB of data or 65,555 files. Some archivers are able to put more in than this, but then some can't & some won't be able to extract from this large archives. --Karnesky 17:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

How come everyone thinks that every thing is a promotion??

Not everybody thinks everything is promotion, but Wikipedia has a NPOV policy that should be followed and you have to keep your eyes open, because some people tend to use Wikipedia as a marketing platform, and promote their products or services, or write articles about them "in very good light", or they write stuff about their own products, or create articles about small piece of software that nobody ever heard of, just because they made it and want draw attention to it. -- Frap 10:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] support for rar

is the support for rar reverse engineered or was it because this program started as non-free and it was inherited? --MarSch 11:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Neither. unrar source is distributed under an almost open license that forbids using it to build a RAR archiver. The dll included with 7-zip is under a LGPL-like license which has this (nonfree) exception. --Karnesky 13:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changed version to 4.43

I've changed the version from 4.42 to 4.43 AppliArt 19:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Uh, why? 4.42 is still the newest version ... Jasonn 03:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

4.43 is the beta. I cleaned it up so that it lists 4.42 as stable & 4.43 as a preview release. I also fixed release dates & generalized the text of the main article (which improves readability, makes it easier to update, and will prevent conflicting information). --Karnesky 01:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PPMd Question

I've given 7-Zip a try, and it looks pretty good, but I wonder about one thing. The article concentrates on the LZMA compression, which is 7-Zip's default, but I've gotten clearly better results with the PPMd algorithm on almost all the files I tested it on. Is there an explanation for why PPMd isn't used by default? --Groggy Dice T | C 19:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess you were testing it on text files? — AVRS 14:39, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is an API available?

I would very much like to include 7z in my projects and use it via an API. -- Anibalmorales

There is the LZMA SDK. -- Frap 21:10, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Igor Pavlov

Perhaps Igor Pavlov in the article should be made a link as Igor Pavlov (programmer) to encourage a future article on the creator of 7-Zip? NerdyNSK 02:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Is he notable for anything other than 7-zip? if not, no article. Chris Cunningham 15:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
He did create the 7z format, which is used in more than just 7-zip. I think he can meet WP:BIO with the low hurdle set for creative professionals (especially due to the awards and recognition that 7-zip and 7z have garnered). The article for Eugene Roshal is currently a redirect to a bio within WinRar. We could do the same here. If someone finds enough quality third party sources, we can replace the redirect with the bio (as for Phil Katz). --Karnesky 16:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
"Could" is not the same as "should". I've prodded half a dozen random free software developer articles this week for non-notability outside of the infobox on their pet project. Phil Katz was considerably more notable than most random devs. Chris Cunningham 16:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Red links aren't bad. If someone was WP:BOLD & made the redlink (as NerdyNSK asks), I think it would be petty to delink it. I don't see harm in encouraging stubs. They can always be deleted if they fail to meet WP:RS and/or fail to assert notability per WP:BIO. --Karnesky 16:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
True, but in this case I don't really think there's sufficient notability to make it even potentially worthwhile. A seriously limited number of free software developers ever get decent-sized bios. Chris Cunningham 16:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Since he created 7-Zip and 7z, I find him notable. A new compression format that is free software and is used by lots of users is important, and we should definitely have some information on its creator. Whether it's an article or section, it doesn't really matter. Anyway, I made it a redlink to point out that we ought to have something to say about him. NerdyNSK 23:00, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Is Eugene Kaspersky notable? Why is an owner of the software company more notable than a freelancer? A discrimination? --Yuriy Lapitskiy 17:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Kaspersky is behind among the most commonly used antivirus tools out there, and the tool has a history dating back to the nineties. — Northgrove 10:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Kaspersky antivirus is only about three years older than 7-zip (and the name is not much older at all). Furthermore, 7-zip is one of the most commonly used (un)compression programs & one of the most commonly used free/open source programs (based on freshmeat & source forge stats). Further, the compression format that Pavlov created has been adopted by other notable programs. I think both Pavlov and Kaspersky are potentially notable enough for articles. --Karnesky (talk) 15:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Kapersky's article is a stub which is two and a half years old. Kapersky is still more notable than Pavlov. This doesn't suggest that an article on Pavlov would get much further than two paragraphs. Just add biographical info to the 7-Zip article until it's big enough to warrant a split. Chris Cunningham (talk) 15:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] JZip article nominated for deletion

Please help discuss that on its AfD page. --AVRS 13:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] smzip added

Smzip is now added to the list since 7-zip supports extracting smzip archives. --99.153.135.134 (talk) 15:55, 27 March 2008 (UTC)