I need to choose a compression algorithm

Question

I need to choose a compression algorithm

algorithm, compression, language-agnostic

Solution

If you need high decompression speed then you should be using LZO. Its compression speed and ratio are decent, but it's hard to beat its decompression speed.

Problem

I need to choose a compression algorithm to compress some data. I don't know the type of data I'll be compressing in advance (think of it as kinda like the WinRAR program). I've heard of the following algorithms but I don't know which one I should use. Can anyone post a short list of pros and cons? For my application the first priority is decompression speed; the second priority is space saved. Compression (not decompression) speed is irrelevant. - Deflate - Implode - Plain Huffman - bzip2 - lzma

Original source

Accepted Answer

If you need high decompression speed then you should be using LZO. Its compression speed and ratio are decent, but it's hard to beat its decompression speed.