Produces better compression ratios than the DEFLATE compression algorithm (used by .zip and gzip/.gz) and does so faster.
By separating the jobs of archiving (.tar), compressing (.zst), and (if you so choose) encrypting (.gpg), .tar.zst follows the Unix philosophy of “Make each program do one thing well.”.
.tar.xz is also very good and seems more popular (probably since it was released 6 years earlier in 2009), but, when tuned to it’s maximum compression level, .tar.zst can achieve a compression ratio pretty close to LZMA (used by .tar.xz and .7z) and do it faster[1].
zstd and xz trade blows in their compression ratio. Recompressing all packages to zstd with our options yields a total ~0.8% increase in package size on all of our packages combined, but the decompression time for all packages saw a ~1300% speedup.
Can handle lossy images, lossless images, images with transparency, images with layers, and animated images, giving it the potential of being a universal image format.
Much better quality and compression efficiency than current lossy and lossless image formats (.jpeg, .png, .gif).
Produces much smaller files for lossless images than AVIF[2]
Supports much larger resolutions than AVIF’s 9-megapixel limit (important for lossless images).
Supports up to 24-bit color depth, much more than AVIF’s 12-bit color depth limit (which, to be fair, is probably good enough).
it’s already a NATO standard for documents
Because the Microsoft Word ones (.doc, .docx) are unusable outside the Microsoft Office ecosystem. I feel outraged every time I need to edit .docx file because it breaks the layout easily. And some older .doc files cannot even work with Microsoft Word.
By separating the jobs of archiving (.tar), compressing (.zst), and (if you so choose) encrypting (.gpg), .tar.zst follows the Unix philosophy of “Make each program do one thing well.”.
So there’s a tool called tar that creates an archive (a .tar file. Then theres a tool called zstd that can be used to compress files, including .tar files, which then becomes a .tar.zst file. And then you can encrypt your .tar.zst file using a tool called gpg, which would leave you with an encrypted, compressed .tar.zst.gpg archive.
Now, most people aren’t doing everything in the terminal, so the process for most people would be pretty much the same as creating a ZIP archive.
Damn didn’t realize that JXL was such a big deal. That whole JPEG recompression actually seems pretty damn cool as well. There was some noise about GNOME starting to make use of JXL in their ecosystem too…
.tar is pretty bad as it lacks in index, making it impossible to quickly seek around in the file. The compression on top adds another layer of complication. It might still work great as tape archiver, but for sending files around the Internet it is quite horrible. It’s really just getting dragged around for cargo cult reasons, not because it’s good at the job it is doing.
In general I find the archive situation a little annoying, as archives are largely completely unnecessary, that’s what we have directories for. But directories don’t exist as far as HTML is concerned and only single files can be downloaded easily. So everything has to get packed and unpacked again, for absolutely no reason. It’s a job computers should handle transparently in the background, not an explicit user action.
Many file managers try to add support for .zip and allow you to go into them like it is a folder, but that abstraction is always quite leaky and never as smooth as it should be.
But it’s not a tarxz, it’s an xz containing a tar, and you perform operations from right to left until you arrive back at the original files with whatever extensions they use.
If I compress an exe into a zip, would you expect that to be an exezip? No, you expect it to be file.exe.zip, informing you(and your system) that this file should first be unzipped, and then should be executed.
By separating the jobs of archiving (.tar), compressing (.zst), and (if you so choose) encrypting (.gpg), .tar.zst follows the Unix philosophy of “Make each program do one thing well.”.
The problem here being that GnuPG does nothing really well.
Videos (Codec): AV1
Much more efficient than x264 (used by .mp4) and VP9[3].
AV1 is also much younger than H264 (AV1 is a specification, x264 is an implementation), and only recently have software-encoders become somewhat viable; a more apt comparison would have been AV1 to HEVC, though the latter is also somewhat old nowadays but still a competitive codec. Unfortunately currently there aren’t many options to use AV1 in a very meaningful way; you can encode your own media with it, but that’s about it; you can stream to YouTube, but YouTube will recode to another codec.
The problem here being that GnuPG does nothing really well.
Could you elaborate? I’ve never had any issues with gpg before and curious what people are having issues with.
Unfortunately currently there aren’t many options to use AV1 in a very meaningful way; you can encode your own media with it, but that’s about it; you can stream to YouTube, but YouTube will recode to another codec.
AV1 has almost full browser support (iirc) and companies like YouTube, Netflix, and Meta have started moving over to AV1 from VP9 (since AV1 is the successor to VP9). But you’re right, it’s still working on adoption, but this is moreso just my dreamworld than it is a prediction for future standardization.
Don’t. Email is insecure . Even with PGP, it’s default-plaintext, which means that even if you do everything right, some totally reasonable person you mail, doing totally reasonable things, will invariably CC the quoted plaintext of your encrypted message to someone else
Okay, provide me with an open standard that is widely-used that provides similar functionality.
It isn’t there. There are parties who would like to move email users into their own little proprietary walled gardens, but not a replacement for email.
The guy is literally saying that encrypting email is unacceptable because it hasn’t been built from the ground up to support encryption.
I mean, the PGP guys added PGP to an existing system because otherwise nobody would use their nifty new system. Hell, it’s hard enough to get people to use PGP as it is. Saying “well, if everyone in the world just adopted a similar-but-new system that is more-amenable to encryption, that would be helpful”, sure, but people aren’t going to do that.
The message to be taken from here is rather “don’t bother”, if you need secure communication use something else, if you’re just using it so that Google can’t read your mail it might be ok but don’t expect this solution to be secure or anything. It’s security theater for the reasons listed, but the threat model for some people is a powerful adversary who can spend millions on software to find something against you in your communication and controls at least a significant portion of the infrastructure your data travels through. Think about whistleblowers in oppressive regimes, it’s absolutely crucial there that no information at all leaks. There’s just no way to safely rely on mail + PGP for secure communication there, and if you’re fine with your secrets leaking at one point or another, you didn’t really need that felt security in the first place. But then again, you’re just doing what the blog calls LARPing in the first place.
This is the kind of thing i think about all the time so i have a few.
.tar.zst.zipandgzip/.gz) and does so faster..tar), compressing (.zst), and (if you so choose) encrypting (.gpg),.tar.zstfollows the Unix philosophy of “Make each program do one thing well.”..tar.xzis also very good and seems more popular (probably since it was released 6 years earlier in 2009), but, when tuned to it’s maximum compression level,.tar.zstcan achieve a compression ratio pretty close to LZMA (used by.tar.xzand.7z) and do it faster[1].JPEG XL/.jxl.jpeg,.png,.gif).AV1.mp4) and VP9[3].OpenDocument / ODF / .odt.odtis simply a better standard than.docx.https://archlinux.org/news/now-using-zstandard-instead-of-xz-for-package-compression/ ↩︎
https://tonisagrista.com/blog/2023/jpegxl-vs-avif/ ↩︎
https://engineering.fb.com/2018/04/10/video-engineering/av1-beats-x264-and-libvpx-vp9-in-practical-use-case/ ↩︎
is av1 lossy
AV1 can do lossy video as well as lossless video.
wait so does it do all of those things?
So there’s a tool called tar that creates an archive (a
.tarfile. Then theres a tool called zstd that can be used to compress files, including.tarfiles, which then becomes a.tar.zstfile. And then you can encrypt your.tar.zstfile using a tool called gpg, which would leave you with an encrypted, compressed.tar.zst.gpgarchive.Now, most people aren’t doing everything in the terminal, so the process for most people would be pretty much the same as creating a ZIP archive.
Damn didn’t realize that JXL was such a big deal. That whole JPEG recompression actually seems pretty damn cool as well. There was some noise about GNOME starting to make use of JXL in their ecosystem too…
.taris pretty bad as it lacks in index, making it impossible to quickly seek around in the file. The compression on top adds another layer of complication. It might still work great as tape archiver, but for sending files around the Internet it is quite horrible. It’s really just getting dragged around for cargo cult reasons, not because it’s good at the job it is doing.In general I find the archive situation a little annoying, as archives are largely completely unnecessary, that’s what we have directories for. But directories don’t exist as far as HTML is concerned and only single files can be downloaded easily. So everything has to get packed and unpacked again, for absolutely no reason. It’s a job computers should handle transparently in the background, not an explicit user action.
Many file managers try to add support for
.zipand allow you to go into them like it is a folder, but that abstraction is always quite leaky and never as smooth as it should be.wait im confusrd whats the differenc ebetween .tar.zst and .tar.xz
Different ways of compressing the initial
.tararchive.deleted by creator
But it’s not a tarxz, it’s an xz containing a tar, and you perform operations from right to left until you arrive back at the original files with whatever extensions they use.
If I compress an exe into a zip, would you expect that to be an exezip? No, you expect it to be file.exe.zip, informing you(and your system) that this file should first be unzipped, and then should be executed.
use a real operative system then
I get your point. Since a
.tar.zstfile can be handled natively bytar, using.tzstinstead does make sense.No surprise, since OOXML is barely even a standard.
The problem here being that GnuPG does nothing really well.
AV1 is also much younger than H264 (AV1 is a specification, x264 is an implementation), and only recently have software-encoders become somewhat viable; a more apt comparison would have been AV1 to HEVC, though the latter is also somewhat old nowadays but still a competitive codec. Unfortunately currently there aren’t many options to use AV1 in a very meaningful way; you can encode your own media with it, but that’s about it; you can stream to YouTube, but YouTube will recode to another codec.
Could you elaborate? I’ve never had any issues with gpg before and curious what people are having issues with.
AV1 has almost full browser support (iirc) and companies like YouTube, Netflix, and Meta have started moving over to AV1 from VP9 (since AV1 is the successor to VP9). But you’re right, it’s still working on adoption, but this is moreso just my dreamworld than it is a prediction for future standardization.
This article and the blog post linked within it summarize it very well.
Okay, provide me with an open standard that is widely-used that provides similar functionality.
It isn’t there. There are parties who would like to move email users into their own little proprietary walled gardens, but not a replacement for email.
The guy is literally saying that encrypting email is unacceptable because it hasn’t been built from the ground up to support encryption.
I mean, the PGP guys added PGP to an existing system because otherwise nobody would use their nifty new system. Hell, it’s hard enough to get people to use PGP as it is. Saying “well, if everyone in the world just adopted a similar-but-new system that is more-amenable to encryption, that would be helpful”, sure, but people aren’t going to do that.
The message to be taken from here is rather “don’t bother”, if you need secure communication use something else, if you’re just using it so that Google can’t read your mail it might be ok but don’t expect this solution to be secure or anything. It’s security theater for the reasons listed, but the threat model for some people is a powerful adversary who can spend millions on software to find something against you in your communication and controls at least a significant portion of the infrastructure your data travels through. Think about whistleblowers in oppressive regimes, it’s absolutely crucial there that no information at all leaks. There’s just no way to safely rely on mail + PGP for secure communication there, and if you’re fine with your secrets leaking at one point or another, you didn’t really need that felt security in the first place. But then again, you’re just doing what the blog calls LARPing in the first place.