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What is a gzip file and how do i open a gzip file? How to open a .GZIP file? Gzip compressed file how to open.

Announcement

The GZIP Archive file format

The GZIP file extension (also known as GNU ZIP) is one of the most popular compressed file formats today. It is especially popular with Unix and Linux users (note that Windows usually does not use this format). In order to open a file in Windows, you will most likely need to convert the file to another format. The GZIP format is a fairly old format (it was developed in the 90s). Despite the similarity of its name to the ZIP format, the GZIP format does not support data archiving. Moreover, a regular ZIP file can contain multiple files, while a GZIP file cannot.

Technical details of GZIP files

The GZIP extension was developed by Marc Adler and Jean-Loup Galli as part of the GNU Project. These two developers took the Huffman algorithm as a basis, as well as the LZ77 code. They also used the Deflate compression algorithm. The goal of their work was to create a compression format that would be open to the public. Due to the fact that the GZIP format does not support archiving, you can put your multiple files in a TAR archive, and then compress such an archive into the GZIP format. After the compression process completes, the file extension will be changed to TGZ or TAR.GZ.

More information about the GZIP file format

Adjust the compression speed where -1 (one) is the fastest compression method (least compression), and -9 - the compression method with the lowest speed (optimal compression).

Description:

Utility gzip reduces the size of the specified files using the Lempel-Ziv (LZ77) encoding algorithm. If possible, each file is replaced by a file with the extension .gz while saving data about the mode, membership, access time and change. (Extension -z used for VMS, z - for MSDOS, OS / 2, and Atari.) If no files are specified, standard input is compressed to standard output. If the new filename is too long, the utility gzip truncates it while keeping the original filename in the compressed file. Utility gzip attempts to compress only standard files. In particular, it ignores symbolic links.

Utilities are used to restore compressed files to their original form gzip -d , gunzip or zcat .

Note ... These utilities are covered by the terms of the GNU Public License (GPL). They are intended for use in software development systems.

Utility gunzip replaces every file listed on the command line that ends in .gz , .GZ or -z , but starts with the correct magic number, uncompressed file without original extension. This utility also recognizes special expressions .tgz and .taz as symbols for .tar.gz or .tar.GZ .

Utility gunzip currently can unpack files generated by utilities gzip , zip , compress or pack ... The input format is determined automatically. When using the first two formats, the utility gunzip checks the 32-bit CRC. For format pack gunzip checks the uncompressed length. The compression format does not provide for integrity checks. However, in some cases, the utility gunzip can detect corrupted file .GZ ... When unpacking the file fails .GZ do not assume that the file .GZ is correct only because there are no warnings from the standard utility uncompress ... This usually means that the standard utility uncompress does not validate input and generates invalid output.

Utility gzip used to unpack files created by zip only if these files include a single deflation compressed component. This function is only for converting files tar.zip in format tar.gz ... To extract files zip with multiple components should be used instead gunzip utility unzip ... (Note that the utility unzip not included with QNX Neutrino.)

Utility zcat identical gunzip -c ... (On some systems, the zcat can be set as gzcat keeping the original link to the utility compress .) Utility zcat unpacks files from a list on the command line or stdin, and writes the extracted data to stdout. It unpacks files with the correct magic number regardless of the suffix .gz .

Utility gzip uses the Lempel-Ziv algorithm used in zip and PKZIP ... The total compression depends on the size of the input file and the distribution of the common substrings. Typically, the text (original text or text in English) is reduced by 60-70%. Compression quality is generally better than LZW ( compress ), the Huffman method ( pack ) or the adaptive Huffman method ( compact ).

Compression is performed even if the compressed file is larger than the original size. The worst result is an increase of several bytes used for the file header gzip , plus 5 bytes for each 32 KB block or, for large files, an increase of 0.015%. Compression and decompression utility gzip saves mode and affiliation data, as well as file timestamps.

Multiple compressed files can be concatenated. In this case, the utility gunzip extracts all components at the same time. Example:

Computer system users sometimes come across files with the GZ or TGZ extension. A quite natural question arises: how can you open such a file? I would not like to upset readers who work with the Windows operating system ahead of time, but the expediency of opening files in this environment is minimized. And here's the thing ...


What is GZ permission?

Files with the GZ extension first appeared back in 1993 with the release of the GZip utility for packing and unpacking files. The files processed by this program using the compression algorithm received this extension. Many, probably, have already realized that the GZip application belongs to the category of archivers. Files created with their help are ordinary archives. But there is one subtle point here. The point is that such archives are used only in UNIX-like systems.

The GZip utility itself is built into the operating system environment by default. The most interesting thing is that this archiver is present not only in the Linux operating system, but also in the Mac OS X operating systems.Of course, you can open files that have the GZ extension in the Windows operating system, but here a completely natural question arises: whether to do it? Indeed, in most cases, the decompressed data still cannot be read in Windows operating systems. There are Windows versions of GZip as well.

File compression and decompression: algorithm

Many users may mistakenly think that the GZip program for compressing and decompressing files works exactly the same as the well-known WinZIP package. But this is not at all the case. Initially, the program was tested based on its own DEFLATE algorithm. This algorithm was originally built on a combination of two types of encodings Huffman and LZ77. As you already understood, when compressing the required information, the suffix gz is added to the main name. But this only applies to single files. The thing is that this program does not initially support working with multiple files, which is possible in WinRaR or WinZIP applications.

In other words, it is simply impossible to pack two or more data packages into one archive. This is due to the fact that the utility uses the additional TAR application for compression and decompression. As a result, when creating archives, the output is not a file with the GZ extension, but an object with the TGZ extension. The tar.gz variant is also sometimes encountered. In other words, the TAR utility first compresses multiple files into one, which is then processed by the GZip application. This combination of actions, to put it mildly, is not very convenient. The same applies to the process of unpacking data. First, the main archive file is decompressed, and then all other objects are extracted using the additional TAR utility.

How to open a file with a GZ extension?

Now let's talk about how you can open files with the GZ extension. Of course, you can use a "native" utility called GZip for this purpose. There are versions of this program for both UNIX and Windows systems. Since we mostly use the Windows operating system, you can unpack files with this extension using the built-in WinZIP archiver. In addition, the WinRAR, 7-ZIP, Corel WinZIP, E-merge WinAce software packages are quite effective.

Virus

Sometimes there are situations when viruses and malicious objects are disguised as archives with the GZ extension. In most cases, the virus replaces the GZ extension with something similar, for example, GAZ. There are cases when malware and viruses enter the system as a file with the GZ extension. Antivirus programs designed to work with the Windows operating system may not always be able to detect a potential threat in this case. Therefore, when identifying suspicious objects, you need to be very careful. It is better to use powerful packages to scan for viruses, rather than free antiviruses like Avast. As a last resort, scan your computer with a portable utility like KVRT for threats.

Conclusion

That is all the information related to working with GZ archives. Many users have probably already figured out how to work with such data. But first, you need to clarify the situation. You can open such an archive even in the Windows operating system, but is it worth doing? After all, the information packed in it, which relates exclusively to UNIX systems. It will be impossible to work with such files later. For example, let's look at an image file with the DMG extension, which was created in the Mac OS X operating system. You can extract the contents of such a file using the UltraISO program. But then what to do with the extracted information? The same situation is with the GZ data format. Even if the user works with LINUX and Mac OS X operating systems, it is easier for him to install Win RAR, which can be used without additional programs.

If you have a computer installed antivirus software can scan all files on the computer, as well as each file separately... You can scan any file by right-clicking on the file and selecting the appropriate option to scan the file for viruses.

For example, in this figure, file my-file.gzip, then you need to right-click on this file, and select the option from the file menu "Scan with AVG"... Selecting this option will open AVG Antivirus, which will scan this file for viruses.


Sometimes an error can result from incorrect software installation, which may be due to a problem encountered during the installation process. It may interfere with your operating system link your GZIP file to the correct application software influencing the so-called "File extension associations".

Sometimes simple reinstalling GNU Zip Compressed Archive might solve your problem by linking GZIP to GNU Zip Compressed Archive correctly. In other cases, problems with file associations can result from poor software programming developer and you may need to contact the developer for further assistance.


Advice: Try updating the GNU Zip Compressed Archive to the latest version to make sure the latest patches and updates are installed.


It may seem too obvious, but often the GZIP file itself may be causing the problem... If you received a file via an email attachment or downloaded it from a website and the download process was interrupted (for example, a power outage or other reason), the file may be damaged... If possible, try getting a fresh copy of the GZIP file and try opening it again.


Carefully: A damaged file can cause collateral damage to previous or pre-existing malware on your PC, so it is very important that you have an updated antivirus running on your PC at all times.


If your GZIP file related to the hardware on your computer to open the file you may need update device drivers related to this equipment.

This problem usually associated with types of media files that depend on the successful opening of the hardware inside the computer, for example, sound card or video card... For example, if you are trying to open an audio file but cannot open it, you may need to update sound card drivers.


Advice: If, when you try to open a GZIP file, you get SYS file related error message, the problem could probably be related to damaged or outdated device drivers that need to be updated. This process can be facilitated by using a driver update software such as DriverDoc.


If the steps did not solve the problem and you're still having problems opening GZIP files, it could be due to lack of available system resources... Some versions of GZIP files may require a significant amount of resources (e.g. memory / RAM, processing power) to open properly on your computer. This problem occurs quite often if you are using fairly old computer hardware and at the same time a much newer operating system.

This issue can occur when the computer has a hard time completing a task, as the operating system (and other services running in the background) can consume too many resources to open the gzip file... Try closing all applications on your PC before opening GNU Zip Compressed Archive. By freeing up all the available resources on your computer, you will provide a better environment for trying to open the GZIP file.


If you completed all the steps above and your GZIP file still won't open, you might need to run equipment upgrade... In most cases, even with older hardware versions, the processing power may still be more than adequate for most custom applications (unless you're doing a lot of CPU-intensive work like 3D rendering, financial / scientific modeling, or heavy multimedia work) ... In this way, it is likely that your computer does not have enough memory(more commonly called "RAM", or random access memory) to perform the task of opening a file.

The GNU zipped file is integrated with the specifications and standards implemented using the GNU ZIP compression algorithm, and these compressed GNU files are saved in the GZIP format and are attached with the .gzip extension. These .gzip files can contain one or more files selected by the user for compression using the GNU ZIP algorithm. The resulting GZIP file will be smaller than the actual size of the uncompressed versions of the files stored in the GZIP file. The GNU ZIP algorithm is an open source compression technology, and support for these GZIP compression standards and specifications are mostly integrated into Unix-based systems. There are many file compression and decompression tools in Microsoft Windows with support for these GZIP files, which means that these programs can be used to create or decompress and access the information stored in these GZIP files. There are also file compression and decompression programs developed for Mac platforms that can be used to decompress these GZIP files. Smith Micro StuffIt Deluxe 2011 is integrated with support for compressing files in the GZIP format, as well as for decompressing GZIP files.

Top related articles

File extension .gzip
File category
Associated programs Smith Micro Stufflt Deluxe 2010 (Windows)
Corel WinZip 18.5 (Windows)
7-Zip (Windows)
Smith Micro Stufflt Deluxe 16 (Mac)
Apple archive Utility (Mac)
Gzip (Linux)
Xarchive (Linux)