bzip3
High-performance file compressor with improved ratios over bzip2
TLDR
Compress file
SYNOPSIS
bzip3 [options] [file...]
DESCRIPTION
bzip3 is a compression tool offering better compression ratios than bzip2, gzip, and zstd while maintaining reasonable speed. It uses a more modern algorithm than bzip2 with improved performance.
The tool is backward incompatible with bzip2 but provides significantly better compression for most data types.
PARAMETERS
-d, --decompress
Decompress file-k, --keep
Keep original files-f, --force
Overwrite existing files-c, --stdout
Write to standard output-b, --block size
Block size in MiB (65-511)-j, --jobs n
Number of threads-v, --verbose
Verbose mode
FEATURES
- Better compression than bzip2
- Multi-threaded compression
- Configurable block sizes
- Fast decompression
- Low memory usage
- Modern algorithm
WORKFLOW
bzip3 file.txt
# Creates: file.txt.bz3
# Decompress
bzip3 -d file.txt.bz3
# Compress keeping original
bzip3 -k file.txt
# Multi-threaded compression
bzip3 -j 4 largefile.bin
# Custom block size
bzip3 -b 128 file.txt
COMPARISON
Typical compression ratios:
- bzip3 - Best
- xz/lzma - Excellent but slower
- bzip2 - Good
- gzip - Moderate but fast
- lz4 - Fast but lower compression
CAVEATS
Not compatible with bzip2 (.bz2 files). Less widely supported than gzip/bzip2. Relatively new (may have bugs). Not installed by default on most systems. Some features require recent versions.
HISTORY
bzip3 was created by Kamila Szewczyk in 2022 as a modern successor to bzip2, using improved algorithms for better compression.