FreeArc - compression

[joby_toss]

FreeArc is a modern general-purpose archiver. Main advantage of FreeArc is fast but efficient compression and rich set of features.

FreeArc works 2–5 times faster than best other compression programs.

Last program version — 0.666
Advantages

• Free, open-source, with console and GUI versions for both Windows and Linux
  Includes LZMA, PPMD, TrueAudio and generic Multimedia compression algorithms with automatic switching by file type
  Filters that further improve compression: REP (finds repetitions at the distances up to 1gb), DICT (dictionary replacements for texts), DELTA (improves compression of tables in binary data), BCJ (executables preproccesor) and LZP (removes repetitions in texts)
  Special compression algorithms are used in fast compression modes (GRZIP for texts and Tornado for binary data)
  Overall, 11 compression algorithms and filters are included (compared to 3 in 7-zip and 7 in RAR) and this number still grows
  Smart file sorting that groups similar files together and fully customizable sorting order (see below) further improve compression
  Typically, FreeArc works 2-5 times faster than best programs in each compression class (ccm, 7-zip, rar, uharc -mz, pkzip) while retaining the same compression ratio; from technical grounds, it’s superior to any existing practical compressor
  Moreover, you can use any external program as compressor or filter as easy as internal ones, with Precomp, ECM, CCM(x), PPMonstr, Durilca, LPAQ, UDA and PAQ are already preconfigured in arc.ini as shipped
  You can fine-tune settings for each compression algorithm, and which compression algorithms are used for each type of files; you can create new compression profiles and modify existing ones; use -dic$ option in order to see all details of compression used

Features

• Solid compression with smart updates (only changed solid blocks are recompressed)
  User-definable solid block size (-s…) and file sorting order (-ds…), including customized filename ordering (arc.groups)
  AES/Blowfish/Twofish/Serpent encryption with keyfiles support and ability to chain multiple ciphers (-p, -hp, --keyfile, --encryption=ALGORITHMS)
  FAR and Total Commander plugins allow to create/browse/extract archives using the file manager interface
  Ability to create SFX (self-extracted) archives and installers
  Ability to list/extract archives directly from Internet: arc x http://www.haskell.org/bz/arc.arc *.h
  Archive protection and recovery, including recovery over Internet driven by CRCs of archive sectors (r/rr/-rr/--original=URL)
  Ability to test archive before and after any operation (-tp/-t), including checking by recovery record and full archive test
  Moving to archive (m), joining archives (j), archive recompression (ch), locking (k) and commenting (-z/cw)
  Select files by size, time/age and name (-sl, -sm, -ta, -tb, -tn, -to, -n), select by/clear ARCHIVE file attribute (-ao/-ac)
  Base directory on disk / inside archive (-dp/-ap), automatic generation of archive filenames (-ag)
  Errors and warnings are reported to stderr and reflected in program exit code; --logfile option saves to the file all the information displayed
  Configurable via arc.ini file and FREEARC environment variable; alternative settings may be selected by means of -cfg/-env options

Compared to RAR and 7-zip, FreeArc at this moment lacks the following: multi-volume archives, 64-bit version, storing of file attributes/extended timestamps/NTFS streams in the archive, bcj2, data segmentation. These are planned to be fixed in subsequent versions.

I made this topic here because I don't have any idea if it got out of beta stage.
The portable version is here. I get only some specific 64bit registry leftovers.

P.S.: still one of your favorites, m^2?

[m^(2)]

[url=http://www.freearc.org/Default.aspx]P.S.: still one of your favorites, m^2?

Yep. There's nothing comparable really.
-open source
-feature rich
-efficient
-tweakable (*)

(* not that important, but in many cases it lets you drive efficiency further)

Too bad it's development is so much slower than estimated by Bulat... it was supposed to be stable long long ago.
The stable version will be called 1.0 and now we're at 0.666. IIRC, about 1.5 year ago FA was at 0.5 and 1.0 was planned for late 2009.
And this makes me treat it as 'it's ready when it's ready' stuff.

[joby_toss]

Since you used this one much more than I did, could you please tell me if it's stable enough?
I couldn't crash it no matter what I tried!

[m^(2)]

Since you used this one much more than I did, could you please tell me if it's stable enough?
I couldn't crash it no matter what I tried!

No, it isn't.
I don't remember if there are known significant bugs in 0.666, but they still happen from time to time.

[webfork]

Wow. This program totally rules.

• Different compression levels use completely different algorithms including (thank heaven) bzip2 for very fast compression
• Lots of context menu items (tho most portable users won't care about this)
• More encryption options including the high speed blowfish and a high security serpent+twofish profile
• Add encryption without making the user to decompress and recompress
• Re-compress files in an archive - something I was so happy AppCompactor and ArcThemAll would do.
• Repair archives
• Join archives

Instructions for use:

1. Download portable zip file version - http://www.freearc.org/Download.aspx
2. Extract to folder of your choice
3. Open the BIN directory and start FreeArc.exe

Additionally, I was able to delete the \Share folder and all files in \bin\arc.languages (excluding arc.english.txt) to save around 2.5 megs.

Has this been tested for portability?

[joby_toss]

It is portable, but in beta stage; that's why I posted about it here.

[usdcs]

I was curious about the version number choice. This explains it!

FreeArc 0.666 (May 20, 2010)

New FreeArc version made break-through in compression efficiency! It is 1.5-2x faster than previous speed king - FreeArc 0.60. And 2-5x faster than best other compression programs (7-zip, WinRAR, WinZIP) for the same comrpession ratio. New FreeArc runs like hell - it's why we chosen such version number

[joby_toss]

I still don't get it: what does 0.666 has to do with 666? Aren't these two different numbers? Or it's something like 0.hell?

[guinness]

Aren't these two different numbers?

I checked in AutoIt...YES

Code: Select all

$Result = StringCompare("0.666", "666")
If $Result = -1 Then $Result = "666 is Higher than 0.666"
MsgBox(0, "StringCompare Result", $Result)

But I can see the joke!

[Lupo73]

I have found an interesting website that tests compression formats and software. In one of its result pages FreeArc is reported as a good solution comparing compression ratio and speed:
http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_mf2.php

[webfork]

So this program appears to be behind on its own schedule http://www.freearc.org/FuturePlans.aspx . Maybe they're not getting the donations they had hoped for.

Although it does bring up the question of how to describe a compression program as "release worthy". I was just fine waiting as long as it took to get 7-zip out of beta, since -- much more than other software -- archiving tools need to have as few bugs as possible before you call them "stable".

The program is GPL'd so hopefully some other programs benefit from their optimization work if development has ended.

[m^(2)]

Bulat doesn't talk about donations, I guess he's just very optimistic when scheduling development.
It's not the first schedule that's way off...and I guess there will be another one missed before 1.0

Development is not about to end soon, but I don't think that if Bulat stopped working on it now anybody would pick it up.
I's rather complex, written in Haskell, in a mix of russian and english and doesn't have much following yet.

[freakazoid]

Just tested this as I was looking for a good archiver with decent command-line support.

Latest alpha was posted on November 11, 2013.

This might replace Bandizip for me.

[smaragdus]

I made this topic here because I don't have any idea if it got out of beta stage.
The portable version is here. I get only some specific 64bit registry leftovers.

The 'About' menu doesn't say it is Beta. Alpha, Beta, Stable, these are just words, in many cases a Beta can be much stabler and bug-free than a version released as Stable.

I haven't used FreeArc excessively but still I haven't managed to crash it. I agree that the development is slow (I hope it is not discontinued), but the same can be said about 7-Zip.

Once I made some tests and FreeArc compressed better than 7-Zip in most cases. As far as I remember it lost to KuaiZip (free archiver with proprietary KZ compression format) only when compressing image files (I think that KuaiZip beats all archivers when compressing images).

I like FreeArc very much since it compresses well, is stable (on my machine) and is truly portable- FreeArc portable integration to Windows Shell is easy, simple and excellent in contrast with for example Bandizip (the portable version is only x32 and cannot integrate to Windows shell) and PeaZip (which requires to run additional tool).

I do think that FreeArc should be added to the database.

[freakazoid]

Was checking on some older apps and found that FreeArc stopped development a long time ago. The official website's domain was bought up by some domain squatters.

Last version of the website can be found on archive.org - https://web.archive.org/web/20170217014 ... eearc.org/.

According to Wikipedia, the author was working on an updated version of FreeArc called FreeArc Next. The author has a GitHub repo over here - https://github.com/Bulat-Ziganshin/FA. No downloads posted over there, but a binary can be found over on Encode's forums: https://encode.su/threads/2621-FreeArc-Next. FreeArc is/was a promising compression tool, but until a public version is brought back, we still have 7-Zip and PeaZip to fill the void.