Reduce Phoenix Size: Use RAR!

fxer · Post by **fxer** » March 14th, 2003, 1:36 pm

Man, just compressing phoenix with RAR instead of ZIP saves over 900k on the file size. Most people who run phoenix know how to use rar, and most people will never even realize it is any different from a ZIP file anyways. So why not lighten the bandwidth load by using RAR?

DamianMoran · Post by **DamianMoran** » March 14th, 2003, 1:39 pm

Use tar.gzip with an installer

smaller than both.

seb · Post by **seb** » March 14th, 2003, 1:54 pm

DamianMoran wrote:Use tar.gzip with an installer :P smaller than both.

Using bzip2 with an installer is even better.

Besides, the best compression format out there is 7z, AFAIK. There are plan to support it in NSIS2, so the unofficial Phoenix installer should support it sooner or later.

Anyway, fxer, .zip is still the most common compression format on Windows (and it's handled by default on WindowsXP). Since Phoenix is targetted for normal users (those who don't even know what .rar is), it makes sense to use .zip, even if the files are a bit bigger.

Post by **old Neil Parks** » March 14th, 2003, 2:11 pm

March 14 Phoenix.exe, original size:
6,582,272

Inside the nightly Zip Archive
3,159,533

EXE compressed with UPX 1.24 for Windows:
(using --best parameter)
2,686,976

Conclusion: Compress with UPX before zipping. You get the benefit of better compression than zip, but it's transparent to the end user.

seb · Post by **seb** » March 14th, 2003, 2:15 pm

No, we already talked about UPX. Sure, it makes the file to download a bit smaller (well, ~250KB smaller when compressed with bzip2, it's not that bad, I must agree. I made this test on dec. 2, it may have changed since). But it also makes the program use a lot more of RAM.
Since normal users download Phoenix only once (or each time there is a milestone, which isn't really often these days), they would have a smaller download, but a slower program.
Not really a good idea, if you ask me.

That said, UPX can be useful for programs you don't use often: I'm using it for the installer itself, for example.

seb · Post by **seb** » March 14th, 2003, 2:17 pm

By the way,

Neil Parks wrote:EXE compressed with UPX 1.24 for Windows:
(using --best parameter)
2,686,976

If you really want to reduce the size, use UPX to compress the DLLs too.

Post by **alanjstr** » March 14th, 2003, 2:24 pm

This whole thing has been discussed to death already. To sum up: there is no point in just reducing download size, it's application performance that matters. Using upx to pack the binaries actually increases the memory footprint, so that doesn't help either. Zip is pretty much a standard across all platforms.

If you really want to make it smaller, contribute patches to the source.

seb · Post by **seb** » March 14th, 2003, 2:31 pm

And just in case you want to read the previous discussions:
http://www.mozillazine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1677 (with diffs of size and RAM/VM usage)
http://www.mozillazine.org/forums/viewt ... hlight=upx

willll · Post by **willll** » March 14th, 2003, 2:49 pm

Better compression = more processor time. A lot of people are using phoenix have very slow computers and it is hell waiting for a bz2 or rar file to decompress.
Here are some comparasions:

phoenix.7z: 5,461,782 bytes
phoenix.rar: 5,586,417 bytes
phoenix.tar.bz2: 6,043,850 bytes
phoenix.tar.gz: 6,226,364 bytes
phoenix.zip: 6,347,789 bytes

Also rar sucks because its proprietary (at least I think so).

fxer · Post by **fxer** » March 14th, 2003, 4:08 pm

When i posted the topic, I was only referring to compressing for the act of download the file, not running the file in some sort of compressed format that uses more processor/RAM. Seeing as Phoenix is beta software so mostly techie geeks like us use it, why not compress the download file with RAR or something similar to save some time, the people using Phoenix at the moment all know how to handle RAR. When Phoenix is released, a RAR file with the frontend installer could be the best option, but face it, ZIP should go the way of the Floppy drive and Paralell ATA hard drives. Everything else in computers evolves, why not our preferred compression format?

fxer · Post by **fxer** » March 14th, 2003, 4:12 pm

As for waiting for a RAR file to decompress, it's not really an issue unless you are using a 386. And as for it sucking because it is proprietary, the unRAR source code is free. Not that it matters, the argument that something sucks simply because it is closed-source is ignorant at best.

Spewey · Post by **Spewey** » March 14th, 2003, 4:14 pm

We'll RAR a special one just for you.

tmkt · Post by **tmkt** » March 14th, 2003, 4:34 pm

fxer wrote:As for waiting for a RAR file to decompress, it's not really an issue unless you are using a 386. And as for it sucking because it is proprietary, the unRAR source code is free. Not that it matters, the argument that something sucks simply because it is closed-source is ignorant at best.

If we are going to mention waiting for RAR to decompress not being an issue unless you have a 386...
Waiting for phoenix to download an extra 900k, really isn't a issue either unless you're using 14.4 dialup.

Most people have high speed at home, work or school....I never find myself sitting here waiting for phoenix to download, and if I did i would find it would be more of a pain if I had to go find and dl RAR, afterwards.

willll · Post by **willll** » March 14th, 2003, 5:20 pm

fxer wrote:As for waiting for a RAR file to decompress, it's not really an issue unless you are using a 386. And as for it sucking because it is proprietary, the unRAR source code is free. Not that it matters, the argument that something sucks simply because it is closed-source is ignorant at best.

On my old Pentium II, phoenix takes about 45 seconds to unzip, during which it is not possible to do anything else on the computer. I don't even want to try unraring anything. Also, I was aware that you could unrar files using opensource software as my open-source compression client, 7zip, reads rars. But I don't see the point in using a propitary compression formula over an open one which has a bettter compression ratio! Also, not everybody who uses Phoenix is a geek, and would not know what to do with any file besides zip

Aqua. · Post by **Aqua.** » March 14th, 2003, 8:45 pm

I'm on a modem connection and would definitely appreciate a downloadable file that is 900kb smaller. That's a signifigant time saving for me.