Archiving
(Lossless, for generic data + file archives)
Compression + archiving
(Multiple files => 1 file, makes it smaller)
- 7z (.7z)
- ACE (.ace)
- ARC (.arc)
- ARC (FreeArc) (.arc)
- ARC (Web archiving) (.arc.gz) See ARC (Internet Archive)
- Apple Disk Image
- ARJ
- BRU - (RSX-11M backup)
- Cabinet (.cab)
- DWC (.dwc)
- IMP (.imp)
- Jar (.j, .jar) => this is just a renamed zip file with some mandatory files
- LHAv (.lzh, .lha)
- PMA (.pma)
- RAR (.rar)
- Softlib (Softdisk Publishing)
- Spark (.spk)
- Stuffit (.sit)
- Stuffit X (.sitx)
- WARC (.warc, .warc.gz)
- ZIP (.zip)
- ZOO (.zoo)
Archiving only
(many files => 1 file, no compression attempted)
- AR file format (.a, .lib) -- Unix Archiver (ar) format as used by various compilers/linkers
- ARC (Internet Archive) (.arc)
- BagIt
- BinHex (.hqx)
- CPIO (.cpio)
- LBR (.lbr)
- Tape Archive (.tar)
Stream compression formats
A stream format takes a stream of bytes, and outputs a different, hopefully smaller, stream of bytes. These compression formats are often used internally in other data structures to compress data, as well as in network protocols, such as http. Used stand-alone, a stream compression format does not offer archiving capability, however in the UNIX doctrine, an archiver like tar can be combined with an archive format to produce a proper compressed archive.
- bzip2 (.bz2)
- CCITT Group 4
- CrLZH (.?y?)
- Crunch (.?z?)
- gzip (.gz)
- Error Code Modeler (.ecm)
- LZIP (.lz)
- LZMA (.lzma)
- LZOP (.lzop)
- LZW (.z)
- Squash - single file compression on RISC OS
- Squeeze/SQ (.?q?)
- XZ (.xz)
Self-extracting archives
(in addition, some of the other archivers are able to produce executable files for some platform which include the archived data and a program to extract them, and generally have the file extension normal for executables, such as .exe for DOS/Windows)
Uncategorized
- 7zX s7z
- 9CDR - Amiga FileImploder Clone
- AFA afa
- ALZip alz
- APX apx
- ARCFS - ArcFS ArchivePacker
- ArchiveLib GreenLeaf
- bh - BlakHole
- cfs - Compact File Set
- cpt - Compact Pro
- CRN crn - compressed text files used for PC-Write manual
- DGCA dgc
- dar - Disk Archiver
- dd - DiskDoubler
- DMS dms - Amiga Disk Masher compressed file
- DUPA- Amiga FileImploder Clone
- ecc - DVDisaster Error Correction File
- FIMP - Amiga FileImploder
- F - Freeze/Melt
- GCA gca
- HA ha
- z - Huffman Encoding
- ICE ice
- IFHC - Amiga FileImploder Clone
- IMP - Amiga FileImploder
- Inflate infl
- JCalG1 DataPacker (.jc, Commodore Amiga)
- kgb - KGB Archiver
- xp3 - KiriKiri
- LZX lzx
- LNX lnx - Lynx archive, used on Commodore 64
- mar - Mozilla Archive
- ??_ - MS-DOS Compression
- pit - PackIt
- PAK pak
- PAQ paq6 paq7 paq8
- par par2 - Parchive File
- partimg - PartImage
- pea - PeaZip
- uca - PerfectCompress
- PIM pim
- qda - Quadruple D
- RK rk
- RZIP rzip
- ba - SCIFER
- sen - Scifer
- sfArk sfark
- shar - Shell Archive
- SQX sqx
- uha - UHarc
- uc, uc0, uc2, ucn, ur2, ue2 - UltraCompressor II
- ar - Unix Archiver
- wim Windows Image
- hki - WinHKI
- rk - WinRK
- XAR xar
- YZ1 yz1
- zz - Zzip