Compressing files?

hey all…

I was wondering if anyone could tell me a compression tool thats free that will get the job done.

I realize that there is winrar which can compress into a .zip or .rar file, but that doesn't really compress the file all that much. For example: compressing a 200 mb file in winrar will drop it to something like 198 ish.

Is there anyway to compress dramatically?

Thank you in advance!

it all depends on what type of file you're compressing dude!

richohealey wrote: it all depends on what type of file you're compressing dude!

are you sure about that? no matter what file i compress i only get between 1% and 3% reduction in size

the other night i got a 2mb file onto a floppy disk!

richohealey wrote: the other night i got a 2mb file onto a floppy disk!

mind explaining how you went about doing this…since you know soooo much about it apparently? lol

Thanks for the responses everyone… anyone else mind helpin me out here? thanks again

If your using windows xp, Right click your file and select send to compressed zipped folder. Does a nice job:happy:

chuckle chuckle…XP… :-/ lol.

I'm more of a windows 2000 / ubuntu type guy myself.

I'm not talking about dropping a megabyte or two off of the total file size, im talking about cutting the size down to a third or even half if possible. Is it at all possible to do this?

I know how to simply compress a file but not drastically.

Win RAR compression mode best, i think it was device drivers, they seem to comress down well.

Well if you had xp instead of 2000(christ) or linux you can compress in seconds down to 5 times to a zip folder. Winrar is your best bet if you stick with what you got. I'd upgrade your OS;)

richohealey wrote: Win RAR compression mode best, i think it was device drivers, they seem to comress down well.

yeah well they may, but videos or software don't.

winrar is what I currently use to compress, but it only seems to compress 1 - 3 % like stated from someone else above.

So is this the only method of compression? To compress 1 - 3% ?