Compressed Files
Compressed file formats use compression techniques and algorithms to reduce disk space usage. Compression archival formats allow a single file to act as a container for multiple compressed files. Compressed files are commonly used by archive creation software and backup software to package multiple files into a smaller, shareable format.
There are two types of compression algorithms: lossless and lossy. Lossy compression reduces file size by discarding some data, which cannot be recovered, while lossless compression retains all data, allowing full recovery. Lossy compression typically results in significantly smaller files compared to lossless compression.
