Filesupport: *.7z upload to website

[ProDigit]

Hi,

Just to call to your attention,
for a while now there exists an extension to the ageold .zip archive format, namely '7z'.

7z combines knowledge of .rar, .zip, and .lha types of compression and fits it into a new format. 7z is compatible for decompressing about all major known compression formats like the ones mentioned above, and .iso etc..
info you can find at www.7-zip.org/

The benefit is that:
1- It's totally free (unlike winzip or winrar that require you to purchase a license after 40 days
2- Compression is much more intense,resulting in smaller filesize
3- It has an advanced dictionary size (upto 64MB, compared to 4MB for .rar or zip,resulting in an even smaller filesize).

At this moment there is some debate on internet to replace winzip/winrar with 7z. I replaced mine, since I had purchased a winrar licence but it was only valid for version 2.8. Today winrar has version 3.8, and version 2.8 showed some incompatibilities with the newer versions (like not being able to decode some compressed data).
I also didn't want to use winrar anymore outside of the 40 days trial, and as a result upgraded to what I believe to be a much better encoder/decoder in many aspects, and a totally free one!

The only thing is I can't upload 7z files to the website here.

I'd say if anyone is smart enough to figure out that winzip is not the only compression tool out there, but winrar is one of them, or lha/lza stuff..., I'd advise them to try out this .7z too!

but back to the main topic, support for 7z file uploads?

Perhaps winrar uploads are no longer necessary,since I wrote the author at rarlabs, and they don't see creating winrar with a bigger library any time soon... They wrote me: "The day we find a new and improved algorithm we will certainly build it in a new upgrade; but as for now we don't see any reason to enlarge the dictionary size since that will work incompatibilities with earlier versions of winrar". [= their words paraphrased]

Most people using winrar mainly did it for a better compression over winzip, but winrar has been outperformed!

If winrar will not step forward, we will see many people jumping to 7z.

thank you!

[JSWolf]

But it requires us to have to download and install yet another program. In this case, it's one I did try and decided I did not like. Besides, what is wrong with ZIP as a compression?

[Gaurnim]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Besides, what is wrong with ZIP as a compression?

It's not that important here for the small file sizes of ebooks, but 7z has a better compression ratio.
ProDigit already mentioned it, and other benefits of the 7z format, in his message.

[searchlight]

File size of a e-book should not be a problem unless there are compressing softwares available

[ProDigit]

the 7z fileformat is supported by winrar, and I estimate winzip can open it too, but haven't tried it yet, because it seems to support LZMA.

So, I don't think you need to install another program, all I wanted was for the website to accept .7z files to upload; that's all.