The most common byte is replaced with a variable that is a bit (like number 1 or 0). The ZIP system figures out what is the most common byte are in your file, ranking it from the most common to least common.
To explain how ZIP works, all of the information on your computer is basically just 8 strings of 1’s and 0’s, or as the tech guys called it, a ‘byte’. It’s a versatile file format to use across various platforms, which is why it’s still used now, 31 years later. However, you can’t use or execute a certain file when it is archived or zipped. ZIP enables you to keep files on a ZIP archive for better storage or to transfer them to another system. It’s developed by PKWARE.Inc, released on 14 February 1989.
What’s a ZIP?Ī ZIP file is a format for lossless compressed data. It’s useful for images, audio, and video compression because we can still recognize its key features even if there are some missing pixels. It puts heavy emphasis on reducing the size (bytes). This way, the data can still be identified and used. Then there’s the lossy compression, which reduces the sum of the data and the quality while retaining key information. This is crucial for software files because if you lose some of the data, the software will not work at all. There is lossless compression, which arranges and encodes the data and reduces the total size without eliminating any sum data, keeping the quality of the data the same.
Different types of files have different methods to go about compressing files. It generally works by reducing repeated data by arranging it differently or encoding it into shorter bits. Data compression is a method where you compact your data by encrypting parts of it, reducing its total size.