4.1.4.6 Compression

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We can make a file smaller by compressing it (unless it is already compressed, then it gets larger)

File compression can make files harder to use in Web documents, but the smaller size makes them faster to download. A good rule of thumb is that when the file is MB is size, compression will have a large impact.

Many file formats have compression built in, including,

images - JPG, GIF

video - MPEG, AVI

programs - installation programs are normally compressed

Typical compression formats include,

zip - zip, medium range compression

gz - g-zip - good compression

Z - unix compression

Stuffit - A Mac compression format

Some files, such as text, will become 1/10 of their original size.