The world of file compression software is vast! In the past, WinRar and WinZip were known as the two most optimal file compression tools. Recently, two new contenders with even better compression ratios have emerged: 7-Zip and UHARC. Not stopping there, the “martial arts community” has recently been stirred by a “master” of file compression with an unusual name – KGB Archiver (KA).
The Best in the World… at Compression!
KA is a product “invented” by Polish author Tomasz Pawlak. Besides its ability to compress data to the point of “not being able to be smaller,” KA also integrates an advanced AES-256 bit data encryption algorithm, which means that data compressed by KA can only be decompressed by KA itself. Unfortunately, not every computer can “entice” KA, as it requires a fairly high system configuration: Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 operating systems, a CPU with a speed of at least 1.5 GHz, and a minimum of 256 MB of RAM. Although it is the “best” file compression tool, KA has a “weakness,” which is its extremely slow compression speed. Compressing any file with other similar software may only take a few seconds, while with KA, it can take minutes.
Explanation of the article’s title: Immediately after launching KA into the market, Tomasz Pawlak also gifted users a unique item: a Microsoft Office 2006 (MO) package with a size of 1.43 MB, of course, after being compressed by KA. If you’re skeptical about this, you can download the super small MO package at www.zshare.net/download/mso-rar.html. Then, download the latest version of KA for free at www.download.com/3001-2250_4-10502588.html (with a size of only 873 KB).
After downloading MO and installing KA, you can extract the file mso.rar into a folder of your choice, then double-click on the file mso.kgb to see what the MO package contains. As for Tomasz Pawlak’s “superb” data compression technique, feel free to study it at your leisure! If you really have the time and patience, you can extract MO for use by clicking the Next button, but note that the extraction time for all MO files is very long, possibly lasting hours. According to Tomasz Pawlak’s testing on a machine with a 3.2 GHz CPU and 1 GB of RAM, the waiting time was about 2 hours and 47 minutes!
How to Use
After completing the KA installation process, a dialog box will appear requesting you to configure the working parameters for the program. Since the recommended settings are quite standard, you can skip this step. On the desktop, two new shortcuts will also appear: KGB Archiver Compress and KGB Archiver Decompress.
To use KA for data compression, double-click on the KGB Archiver Compress shortcut to open the program’s interactive interface. However, the quickest way is to right-click on the files or folders you wish to compress and select the command Compress to KGB.
In the Archive format section, you will see that KA only supports two file formats: *.KGB and *.ZIP. The Compression level offers 10 different compression levels for you to choose from based on their data compression ratios (default is normal). Based on testing, you should only select up to the Extreme level, as the system will report an error at the beginning of data compression if you select the maximum level, Maximum.
To compress one or multiple files at once, click the Add file button and select the corresponding files; similarly, click the Add directory button when you want to compress all files in a specific folder. The Password option allows you to create a password to protect the compressed file, and if you want to create a self-extracting compressed file (this feature only supports Windows XP users), check the Create SFX module (Windows only) option. Next, in the Archive section, click the three-dot button, then choose the name and location to save the compressed file that will be created. After that, click the Next button for the program to start compressing the data.
In the Compression level section, if you choose a compression level slightly higher than normal, a dialog box may appear stating: “The data compression process may consume over 75% of the system’s physical memory…”, so while using KA, you should not open any other third-party applications. Then, click Yes to continue the process.
In the final dialog box that appears, to speed up the data compression process, you can set a higher priority level for the program with the Above normal or High option (in the Priority section). If the data you need to compress is large or if you have urgent work to do during the waiting time, you should check the Turn off computer after done option to have the program automatically shut down your computer when the compression process is complete.
Pham Hong Quan
