Using gzip on Windows

[proffy]

Anyone ever try and gzip a file from a windows box? I downloaded gzip for window from http://www.gzip.org but can't find any way to gzip something with it. There is no UI and command line stuff from a DOS prompt doesn't seem to work. Anyone ever have to do this?

Oh, and is winzip the same thing as gzip? I just need a gzip'd file to test a web browsers ability to decompress and render it.

[Derango]

As far as I know, there isn't a browser out there that will decompress and view a gzip'ed file.

Anyway, winzip will uncompress gziped files, but it won't compress them. I'm not sure how the gzip for windows works, so I can't help you there

[Joeri Sebrechts]

Originally posted by Derango:
<STRONG>As far as I know, there isn't a browser out there that will decompress and view a gzip'ed file.</STRONG>

Actually, most browsers will automatically decompress gzipped text files. It's meant as a way to reduce the size of the files that flow over a slow link, but since nobody seems to know, nobody actually makes use of it.

[proffy]

Maybe I said it wrong, I want to check my browsers ability to view gziped content. That is, the web server can gzip the page before it is sent over the net and the browser should unzip it. This is an HTTP header that is supported (by IE anyway...)

Content-Encoding: gzip

[Joeri Sebrechts]

Originally posted by proffy:
<STRONG>Anyone ever try and gzip a file from a windows box? I downloaded gzip for window from http://www.gzip.org but can't find any way to gzip something with it. There is no UI and command line stuff from a DOS prompt doesn't seem to work. Anyone ever have to do this?


Oh, and is winzip the same thing as gzip? I just need a gzip'd file to test a web browsers ability to decompress and render it.</STRONG>

No, gzip isn't the same thing as winzip.

I don't have any experience with using a loose gzip for windows either, but I have with using it as part of the cygwin environment.
The cygwin environment will give you basically a unix environment in windows. Including gzip. And since it has it's own bash shell you can use gzip exactly like you would in linux.
Get cygwin here (http://www.cygwin.com/). Watch it though, it can get rather big depending on how much of cygwin you install.

[proffy]

Originally posted by Joeri Sebrechts:
<STRONG>Actually, most browsers will automatically decompress gzipped text files. It's meant as a way to reduce the size of the files that flow over a slow link, but since nobody seems to know, nobody actually makes use of it.</STRONG>

That's what I thought, thanks. I figured out how to gzip stuff on windows, you just need to drag the file you want zipped onto the gzip.exe icon and it will zip it for you. How MACish!! ;)

[Derango]

Originally posted by Joeri Sebrechts:
<STRONG>Actually, most browsers will automatically decompress gzipped text files. It's meant as a way to reduce the size of the files that flow over a slow link, but since nobody seems to know, nobody actually makes use of it.</STRONG>

Hmm...first I've heard of it. Thanks for the info.

[Malakin]

If you'd just like to amuse yourself and see IE actually compress a page and see the difference load in www.shacknews.com, (http://www.shacknews.com,) right click on the page and click properties, right now I get 14K, then go to "tools" -&gt; "internet options" -&gt; "advanced", untick "use http 1.1" and *close* IE. Now reopen IE and load www.shacknews.com (http://www.shacknews.com) in again, now it should be much larger I get 60K. Don't forget to change it back :)

[Dark Ninja]

If you want an actual program (like WinZip) that will unzip GZIP and TAR files, download WinAce. (You can register it too if you'd like to pay 20 bucks, or something like that.)


Dark Ninja