SetupSwarm

Post edited 04:05 – 28/05/2010 by Panuary

We have all heard of tools that compress files, but how about executables which can run without having to open the archive?

That's where the UPX – the ultimate packer for executables comes into play. It reduces the size of executables more than any other compression tool that I have used, and it is open-source software, so look through the source code for anything you need to know. You can even compile it once you're done.

I have used UPX on many occasions, and for anyone deciding to release their software, packing their executables before adding it to the installer will result in a very bandwidth friendly size.

For people who want to save some space on their hard-drives, using UPX to compress their executables will make it a very convenient and useful tool.

Basic commands: upx [file path\executable]

  to decompress: upx -d [file path\executable]

Help with commands and documentation: upx -h

Below I have provided information for you to evaluate:-

Website: http://upx.sourceforge.net/

File Version: 3.5 (as of 27/04/2010)

File formats supported: All executables (do not use on installers for obvious reasons; pack executables before bulk installing)

For the Graphical User Interface (GUI) versions, please check out SourceForge.net as there are many different versions that cater for different Operating Systems (OS)

Runs on: Windows NT 4 and above, Linux, others (tabulated on website)

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Compression rates in benchmarked tests: 22-45.1%

Original Test Size: 6 files totalled 17,403,075 bytes

Compressed Test Size: 6 files totalled 5,347,857 bytes

Average compression ratio: 30.7% at 10-24MB/sec

I have been able to achieve 20-46.5%, but it depends on the computer's specs., and that wasn't on an SSD

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Download: http://hotfile.com/dl/45140994…..w.zip.html

MD5checksum: 875b73c13905c84739fb8f1bb7f7a698  upx305w.zip

Please select your version of Linux as provided on the website

That's true, but most AVs also report executables packed with UPX as false-positives (e.g. Panda and Win32:MSFake) or a generic form of malware.

This post is only intended to help people with 50MB or 150MB drives save some space. I've recently seen some minimalist activity that boasts even smaller drives on tiny nano devices, so this would probably be useful for portables in the future. Go ahead and play with Malzilla, but I'd suggest deleting that post for fear of members distrusting OS as a trustworthy source for links to torrents (I just realised how stupid that sounds).

Oh well *shrugs*