The Data compression reference article from the Simple Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Data compression

Data compression means making data take up less space on a disk. Some reasons why data are compressed include making them download faster, make them fit on floppy disks, and to make them easier to archive. Pictures and Movies often have parts removed that the human eye cannot see. This is known as "lossy" compression and is effective due to human limitations.

There are many different ways to compress data. The most common way is known as "zipping" data. You can also "unzip" data to use it again.

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