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Can gzip be a language model?

414 points · 165 comments · networked

Culonavirus · 1790062666 · focus · HN ↗
This tracks perfectly with Winrar being more profitable than OpenAI... coincidence? I think not!
1. wolfi1 · 1790063517 · focus · HN ↗
  winrar is profitable? sure? well, on the other hand, they sure don't make losses
  1. shezi · 1790065233 · focus · HN ↗
    They are a German GmbH and must publicly state their financials: <a href="https://www.northdata.de/win%C2%B7rar%20GmbH,%20Berlin/Amtsgericht%20Charlottenburg%20(Berlin)%20HRB%20109885%20B" rel="nofollow">https://www.northdata.de/win%C2%B7rar%20GmbH,%20Berlin/Amtsg...
    Looks pretty profitable to me.
    amiga386 · 1790065827 · focus · HN ↗
    They're one of the few companies that actually manage to sell "boxed software" (i.e. has not changed much in years but new customers keep buying it)
    That said, Windows users should use 7-Zip. Better compression format, unpacks more kinds of archives
    xxs · 1790067958 · focus · HN ↗
    > Windows users should use 7-Zip
    Please no - no native zstd support. NanaZip is the better option (it's a different build of 7-zip) and it's available at windows store.
    > Better compression format, unpacks more kinds of archives
    winrar has supported zstd for 5 years[0]
    In short - Everyone should be using zstd, and 7-zip does not support it.
    [0]: <a href="https://www.win-rar.com/singlenewsview.html?&L=0&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=175&cHash=aca38142108c76995eba6c674bfd0e14" rel="nofollow">https://www.win-rar.com/singlenewsview.html?&L=0&tx_ttnews%5...
    aleph_minus_one · 1790069723 · focus · HN ↗
    > Everyone should be using zstd
    Why?
    shawabawa3 · 1790070934 · focus · HN ↗
    It's just the best general purpose compression algorithm, in terms of compression ratio to CPU used, for the vast majority of use cases
    Dylan16807 · 1790123197 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not that fussed about CPU use.
    <a href="https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd
    By these charts, if I only need 5-10 megabytes per second of compression on a single core, LZMA2 wins significantly on ratio, and still decompresses at well over 100. If I'm doing a backup, or sending/receiving over my internet connection (which only has 2MB/s of upload), LZMA2 easily wins. If I need speed then zstd wins.

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