StuffIt
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StuffIt is a family of software utilities for archiving and compressing files on the Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows and Linux platforms: Macintosh users in particular utilise the software. Raymond Lau wrote StuffIt in the 1980s as a high school student at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, and Allume Systems (formerly Aladdin Systems) has further developed the utilities. While StuffIt has improved over time and offers better compression ratios than some other compression systems, formats such as RAR and 7z have since superseded it in many areas.
StuffIt-compressed files typically have the filename extension .sitx or .sit.
Allume offers free downloads of StuffIt Expander, which expands (uncompresses) files compressed using the StuffIt format, and the same software comes preloaded with Macintosh computers. The shareware application DropStuff permits the compressing of files into the format.
The StuffIt format remains, unlike some other file compression formats, proprietary, and Allume Systems charge license fees (http://www.stuffit.com/win/sdk/license.html) for its use in other programs. Given this, few alternative programs support the format.
Stuffit Image Format (SIF)
Early in 2005 Allume announced a new JPEG compression system that regularly obtained compression in the order of 25% (meaning a compressed file size 75% of the original file size) without any further loss of image quality and with the ability to rebuild the original file, not just the original image. (ZIP-like programs typically achieve JPEG compression rates in the order of 1 to 3%. Programs that optimise JPEGs without regard for the original file, only the original image, obtain compression rates from 3 to 10% (depending on the efficiency of the original JPEG). Programs that use the rarely implemented arithmetic coding option available to the JPEG standard typically achieve rates around 12%.)
Allume intend to implement their new technique in the new version of their Stuffit Deluxe product. They have also proposed a new image format known as SIF, which simply consists of a single JPEG file compressed using this new technique.
See also
External links
- Raymond Lau's home page (http://www.raylau.com/biography.html)
- StuffIt website (http://www.stuffit.com/)
- Allume's Image Compression info page (http://www.stuffit.com/imagecompression/)
- JPEG Compression Test (http://www.compression.ca/act/act-jpeg.html)