【Compressed FILE EXTENSIONS】What are they and types? ▷ 2022

Who has not found a .zip or a .rar on some occasion? These files are very common in day to day of all those users who use a computer, especially if connected to the Internet. These include what is called a compressed file extension.

These serve to indicate many things and appear when the user joins, with some software, different files in a single file. Some files of this type must be decompressed but others allow you to access their content without the need for it.

Does all this ring a bell? Let’s see, in any case, compressed, what it is used for, which ones exist, what its characteristics are like and how we can open these groups of files.

What is the extension of an archive or compression file and what is it really for?

A compressed file is one that has been worked so that it occupies less space than the set of its parts. That is, it is a set of files that are compressed to occupy a single space and weigh less, so that they are all grouped and are easy to move. So, an extension of this It will be the one that serves to define them as such.

It is part of the nomenglatura that is given, in this case, to a set of compressed files so that our system knows that it is, precisely, a set, that is, that it is necessary to work on them to define them and see what type each one is within the set.

This name follows the name that you give to the tablet and consists of a set of between 1 and 4 letters and/or numbers; they go after a point, like the rest of the extensions.

When we see them, we know with which program the compression was done and, therefore, what we can expect from that file: if it will decompress fast, if it has been transformed, if our compression software is compatible, etc.

These are features are achieved for the file at the time it is being createdthat is, when we are putting all its parts together and compressing them, depending on the program used for this one or the other result will be obtained.

Types of compressed file extensions and their associated programs to open them

Of all the existing ones, we want you to know the ones that are used the most as well as the ones that have had the most importance throughout these past decades.

Extension Features Program

.arc

• It is an old format for exclusive use on computers.
• Existing, even so, on all platforms

.arj

• Slow compression.
• It appears in the 90s and is practically out of use.
• very flexible.

• Multiple decompression programs

• A Macbinary II coded.
• Generic, along with .hqx, currently.
• great compression
• It must be converted to Binary or MacBinary.

• Mac computers with Stuffit Expander
• In Windows, with a suite that works with ISOs

.dmg

• Mac OS X disk image.
• The equivalent of ISO on a Mac.
• They allow you to start, copy and burn your content to an external storage unit.

• No app needed on Mac.
• PeaZip (for example) for other operating systems

.gz or .gzip

• From GNU Project
• Replacement for Compress, from Unix.
• Use in PC and Unix file
• Use of the Deflate algorithm, which combines Huffman and LZ77 coding.
• It is only a set of compressed files, without archiving.
• Development of own library (zlib).
• Tar packages the files.

• All kinds of freeware and shareware applications such as Untar, Coldcompress, Freezeit, MrGip…

.hqx

• From BinHex.
• Mac standard par excellence.
• A binary transformed into ASCII.

• BinHex, NutCase or Stuffit Expander on Mac
• Latest version of BinHex for Windows

.sit or .sitx

• Stuffit program extension.
• Macintosh native.
• Very versatile.
• Very good level of compression.

• Stufit Deluxe
• Stuffit Expander for Windows

.be

• From MacOS, equivalent to the .exe, that is, it is self-extracting (with its own engine).

• No need for software

.ACE

• WinACE native.
• Very high compression ratio as well as decompression.
• Very fast.
• Great support for long names.

• WinACE, Windows Commander, PCTools

.uu or .uue

• From UUencode, originating in Unix.
• Conversion of binary files into text and 7 bits.
• Regular in email

• Usually automatic decompression
• Stuffit Expander, WinRar, WinZip or UU Undo itself

• Compressed on Unix.
• binary file.

• gZip, Stuffit Expander, or WinZip

• Standard compression in Windows and DOS.
• Fast but less compression than many others.

• Slow execution.
• Very high compression.
• A great data redundancy system.

• WinRar, WinZip, 7-zip, The Unarchiver, iZip (Mac)

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Do you know of other file compression extensions? Leave them in the comments and we will add them to the list, they will surely be of great value to other readers!