Differences between gz, bzip2, xz, 7z, rar, lzop
                                                                             Differences between gz, bzip2, xz, 7z, rar, lzop Gzip and bzip2, as well as xz and lzop, are functionally equivalent.  (There once was a bzip, but it seems to have completely vanished off the  face of the world.)  Other common compression formats are zip, rar and  7z; these three do both compression and archiving (packing multiple  files into one).  Here are some typical ratings in terms of speed,  availability and typical compression ratio  (note that these ratings are  somewhat subjective, don't take them as gospel):  decompression speed (fast > slow):  lzop > gzip, zip > xz > 7z > rar > bzip2 compression speed (fast > slow):  lzop > gzip, zip > xz > bzip2 > 7z > rar compression ratio (better > worse):  xz > 7z > rar, bzip2 > gzip > zip > lzop availability (unix) : gzip > bzip2 > xz > lzop > zip > 7z > rar availab...