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How Does File Compression Work?
I think all of us reading this has heard of file compression. The compression principle is a very important and useful invention, for Web users, because it basically reduces the overall number of bits and bytes (size) in a file so it can be transmitted faster over slower Internet connections, or take up less space on a disk. File compression is one of the fundamentals of how the web works. But how does it work?

At first inspection, this seems very interesting and weird almost, as in how can you reduce the number of bits and bytes and then get those exact bits and bytes back later? As it turns out, the basic idea behind the process is fairly straightforward but sounds oddly magical. It’s not really magical, but it is the result of a lot of hard work put in by many very smart people to make all of our lives easier. Let’s explore how file compression works.

First of all we should know that there are two kinds of compression:
·         Lossless Compression, and
·         Lossy Compression

Lossless Compression basically works on the principle of ‘simplification’. For ease of explanation, I would like to bring up an example.
       rrrrrrrrvvvvv could be represented or “compressed” if I may, to r8v5

 Though this is only one method, it is the base of how it works. The different kinds of lossless compression use different math tricks. The main thing to remember from this kind of compression is that while space is saved temporarily, it is possible to completely reconstruct the compressed file from the original one, hence the implication of the name ‘Lossless’.
Lossy Compression comes in to help at times where we cannot use lossless. What this does is it simply removes information. Even though it sounds pretty scary and crazy, it’s actually not. In fact, many files on your computer right now probably used this. For example, and MP3. Now I’m sure you can’t tell me you don’t have even one of these! But what you might not know about them, is that they do not contain all the audio information that the original recording would have. Some sounds, which us humans can’t or can barely hear are removed. Another example you would’ve heard of is the JPEG image. If you think about it, images don’t have to be as high quality for us to see them clearly as they have to be if we needed to print them. So the reduction in quality, i.e. compression is done to save space and data.

lossy.gif The important thing to remember is that this method physically removes or deletes data, so we actually lose that, which does not allow us to recreate the actual original file.


Effects of file compression? There are a few, almost equal good and bad ones.

  • Files take less space, i.e. you’ll have more space in reality.
  • It supports Faster reading, writing & Data transfer
  • A bane is that it further complicates the transfer process and some people might not know how to compress and/or decompress files.
  • Also, it is possible to incur errors in the process.


Refrences



Technology Explained : How Does File Compression Work?. (Justin Pot). Retrieved October 11, 2012, from https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-does-file-compression-work/

How File Compression Works. (Tom Harris). n.d. , from https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-does-file-compression-work/

[Lossless Vs. Lossy Audio] [Photograph]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/46333/lossless-compression

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