I'm sure most of you internet webbers have seen compressed files such as .zip or .rar (lossless compression). Does anybody have any opinions on what compression is best for lossless? Personally I use .rar, but I'm sure there must be better algorithms. Is there a fundamental limit to how much something can be compressed (compression ratio)? Maybe someone can help explain Shannon's theory of information and what it really means.

.rar has settings within the program to set the level of compression, with compression set to highest rar is the most powerful I have ever come across... but I've only looked in the freeware side of the market, if you were willing to pay you never know.

*.rar is the best I've seen by far

.rar has settings within the program to set the level of compression, with compression set to highest rar is the most powerful I have ever come across... but I've only looked in the freeware side of the market, if you were willing to pay you never know.

 

The rar format is proprietary. WinRAR is only shareware.

bz2 and the the ratio compression is relative to the data content. is the best that exist.

rar is good, zip is classical and not so good but its streameable.

If you are looking specifically for lossless audio compression, try FLAC or APE.