LXer: Google open sources very slow compression algorithm

LXer · 03-01-2013, 10:11 AM

Published at LXer:

Google has open sourced a new compression algorithm called Zopfli that it says is a slower-but-stronger data squasher than the likes of zlib. The product of Googler Lode Vandevenne's 20 per cent time, the day a week Google allows its staff to work on side projects, Zopfli is said to reduce files to sizes 3.7–8.3 per cent smaller than its rivals (PDF). The catch is that it takes one hundred times longer to do so.

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H_TeXMeX_H · 03-01-2013, 12:15 PM

Here's the result of my benchmark:

Code:

compr		time		size		x times slower		%size of gz
zopfli		445.148		16016567	151.97			 97.83
xz		 25.586		12589128	  7.79			 76.89
gz		  2.910		16370807	  0			100

Commands used:

Code:

bash-4.2$ tar -cf ffmpeg.tar ffmpeg-linux64-20130223/
bash-4.2$ time ./zopfli ffmpeg.tar 

real	7m25.148s
user	7m24.669s
sys	0m0.397s
bash-4.2$ time xz ffmpeg.tar

real	0m25.586s
user	0m25.462s
sys	0m0.118s
bash-4.2$ stat -c '%s' ffmpeg.tar.gz 
16016567
bash-4.2$ stat -c '%s' ffmpeg.tar.xz 
12589128
...
bash-4.2$ time gzip ffmpeg.tar

real	0m2.910s
user	0m2.869s
sys	0m0.040s
bash-4.2$ stat -c '%s' ffmpeg.tar.gz 
16370807

Conclusion: This "better" compression by Google is good-for-nothing. Try again.