bzip3

High-performance file compressor with improved ratios over bzip2

TLDR

Compress file

$ bzip3 [file.txt]

Decompress file

$ bzip3 -d [file.txt.bz3]

Keep original file

$ bzip3 -k [file.txt]

Set block size

$ bzip3 -b [256] [file.txt]

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

$ # Compress file
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.