AppCompactor

AppCompactor is a utility designed to reduce the disk space occupied by applications and enhance their performance when launched from slow media, such as USB flash drives. Packaged as a portable app, it is primarily intended for developers and advanced users who need to optimize their software.

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• Proven UPX binary compressor. The application utilizes the well-regarded UPX (Ultimate Packer for Executables) to reduce the size of executable files (.exe, .dll) without altering their functionality, contributing to faster loading from removable drives.
• 7-Zip compression of archives. It integrates 7-Zip technology to compress existing archive files like .zip, .jar, or .bin, further optimizing the space used by the application.
• Multiple compression levels. It offers different compression levels and methods (such as NRV2E), allowing the user to balance the compression ratio with decompression speed and the stability of the resulting application.
• Automatic testing of compressed files. After the compression process, the tool automatically verifies the integrity of the modified files to ensure the compressed application continues to function correctly.
• Automatically skips files under 4 KB. To optimize the process, it excludes files smaller than 4 kilobytes by default, as compressing them offers no significant space saving and may impact performance.
• Add inclusions/exclusions using PortableApps.com Format. Users can define precise rules for which files or file types to compress or exclude, using a standard format based on .ini files, allowing for advanced customization.
• Compression of multiple file types. The program can compress files with extensions common in applications, such as .exe, .dll, .zip, .jar, .irc, .pyd, and .bin, across all directories of the selected application.
• Automatically skips launcher in PortableApps.com Format apps. When selecting the base directory of an application following the PortableApps.com Format, the tool automatically identifies and skips the main launcher (e.g., AppName.exe) to prevent it from breaking.
• Automatically excludes critical system components. To preserve stability, it automatically excludes essential files such as Visual C++ runtimes and Qt image handlers, as compressing them could cause application crashes.
• Saves up to 50% or more installed space. The applied compression can reduce the on-disk size of many applications by half or more, which is particularly useful for devices with limited storage capacity.
• Faster application starts from flash drives. By reducing file sizes and optimizing packaging, applications compressed with AppCompactor often load faster when run directly from a USB flash drive.
• Technology used in popular portable suites. The underlying compression technology is the same one used to create portable and compressed versions of programs like OpenOffice.org Portable, Pidgin Portable, or GIMP Portable, ensuring its effectiveness.

The development of PortableApps.com AppCompactor is tied to the PortableApps.com community and was added to the official repository on March 20, 2008. The tool is written in a programming language that combines code for the graphical interface and scripts, relying on open-source projects like UPX and 7-Zip for the core compression tasks.

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