About Audio File Formats

Audio can be stored uncompressed, as with .aiff and .wav files. Lossless compression schemes, as used in .flac files, preserve the original sound quality by only removing unnecessary and redundant data. MP3, by far the most popular audio format, removes data using a lossy scheme which results in a slight loss of audio quality but significant compression. The AAC format is capable of better audio quality than MP3 in the general bit rate range, at the cost of less compression ability. Audio can be stored uncompressed, as with .aiff and .wav files. Lossless compression schemes, as used in .flac files, preserve the original sound quality by only removing unnecessary and redundant data. MP3, by far the most popular audio format, removes data using a lossy scheme which results in a slight loss of audio quality but significant compression. The AAC format is capable of better audio quality than MP3 in the general bit rate range, at the cost of less compression ability.

About Compressed Archive Files

Compressed archives combine multiple files into a single file to make them easier to transport or save on diskspace. Archiving software may also provide options for encryption, file spanning, checksums, self-extraction, and self-installation. Zip is the most-widely used format, used by the Windows operating system and more recently by OSX as well. RAR is also a very popular and flexible format. Unix uses the tar file format, while Linux uses the tar and gz format.