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UPX makes sense if you're trying to fit your executable onto fixed-size media from which it needs to execute (e.g. a floppy disk or USB drive), and almost nowhe
by barrkel 7y ago
UPX makes sense if you're trying to fit your executable onto fixed-size media from which it needs to execute (e.g. a floppy disk or USB drive), and almost nowhere else.
- Carpetsmoker 7y agoReduced transfer times are good. Not everyone has a 100MB/s internet connection (in fact, most of the world doesn't).
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- TheDong 7y agoOkay, so transfer it using `rsync -z` to compress it over the wire, or gzip it first, and extract it on the other end. gzip probably gives you better compression ratios too.
- Const-me 7y agoPeople don’t often directly download and run software binaries. On Windows, they download .msi packages, or .exe installers with embedded MSIs. On Linux, people download .deb or .rpm packages. All of the above packaging formats are already compressed. Also, even if you publish raw binaries without an installer package, HTTP protocol supports compression. Usually quite easy to implement, couple lines in a web server config.
- Carpetsmoker 7y agoYes, there are many solutions. upx just gives you an easy, transparent, and convenient way to compress a binary without worrying about web server configurations and whatnot.
- Const-me 7y agoI have used UPX on Windows some 15 years ago and liked it a lot these days. My primary motivation was not network transfer speed, it was HDD storage, bandwidth, and especially latency. It was faster to sequentially read the complete binary, compared to reading individual memory pages as required. Nowadays disk space is very cheap, disks are often solid state with ridiculously high IOPS, but antivirus software became much worse and likely to mark a UPX compressed binary as malware.