What good is a compression app on a portable drive? And if it is important, what are some really good compression programs?
New: Kanri (Oct 9, '24), Platform 29.5.3 (Jun 27, '24)
1,100+ portable packages, 1.1 billion downloads
No Ads November!, Please donate today
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on BlueSky
Sometimes you need it because if the host computer isn't XP and doesn't have a compression program installed, then you're out of luck if you need to decompress something. If you want a basic compression program that is small, 100K Zipper is good. It only does .zip, but if that's all you use, then its perfect. It's great if you have a small drive, as its name implies, it is quite small.
http://www.xtort.net/office/floppyoffice.php
(Download a tiny package of software called Floppy Office and extract the exe "100Ziper" and put that on your drive.)(You can rename it to correct the spelling error if you wish :-).)
-Justin
I just use the command line tools of the most popular tools out there. Except for winzip which is a pain to get command line to work without the win32 winzip install. I used 7zip and RAR for all my zip needs. I built 10k bat files to start them for the correct OS (XP or 98) and then just use them as any command lint tool. Works great for me and they are pretty small.
I sometimes think that the need for a graphic interface is just for asthetics than any real use. but that's just me.
Deuce
Portable Software: Just the beginning.
GUIs do have uses. For instance, I would never ask my grandfather to do something from the command line. Also, I'm not a big fan of using the command line if there's a GUI tool available. GUIs save a lot of work. It's a lot faster to manuever a mouse than to type out a 50-character command, even when you type at 100 WPM like me.
Sorry, but I'm simply unable to run apps by the commandline on these computers. I'm not allowed to open anything that could be used to mess up the system (such as CMD.exe), so command lines are out.
Also, I type pretty fast (like Bruce) but I don't have the patience to type out so many damn arguments -- if there's a GUI, I prefer to use it. I can extract two archives by the time I tell 7z to extract one via command prompt.
~nm35 {blog} {personal space}
But for command line utilites, I write myself a GUI in NSIS.
There's one on the NSIS forums (I think) for 7za.exe
----
R McCue
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
command lines are sweet. at school people are think that you are programming. plus its different, and it probably runs faster (maybe a tinybit or maybe a lot more, depending on the system).
-6GB 2.5" portable HDD (6gb cuz i haxored it out a old laptop)
-(2x) 128MB Custom Flash USB (dad sent me some)
-512MB Sandisk mini cruzer (won at a lan party)
6.768GB of portable fun
-6GB 2.5" portable HDD (6gb cuz i haxored it out a old laptop)
-(2x) 128MB Custom Flash USB (dad sent me some)
-512MB Sandisk mini cruzer (won at a lan party)
6.768GB of portable fun
People think you're programming? Wow, that sure is a great reason to use the command line. It makes you feel special. </sarcasm>
Admittedly, if it's enabled, you can use CTRL-TAB to auto-complete parameters in CMD.exe--but which is faster, typing in two or three directories, or clicking a few times?
~nm35 {blog} {site}
Mark Smith | PortableApps.com Developer
It's open source. Works on any version of Windows. And does z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR, CAB, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM and DEB. No proprietary software comes close. Can't go wrong with that.
http://www.7-zip.org/
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Didn't you say you already has 7-Zip on your drive in your "Good Apps List" post? (which turned into John and I jousting about messaging protocols :-).)
-Justin
i said i was thinking about it, but actually didn't put it on yet, i wanted feedback...
Well if you need more than .zip, then definetely go with 7-Zip, John is absolutely right, it is the best compresssion program if you need more forms of compression. If you have a small drive, then you might want to look into 100KZipper.
-Justin
They say they are working on making it portable.
http://www.zipgenius.it/eng/?p=29#more-29
Handles 7z also.
http://www.zipgenius.it/eng/?page_id=3 (list of file types)
~Lurk~
I'm a fan of FilZip. If you go into the settings, you can have it save the configuration to an INI file in the application directory. The author is currently working on a plugin interface to allow 7-Zip support.
Rob Loach [Website] [Projects]
Copy the IZARC dir from an install to your usb drive and it runs fine.