What do most people say for “Name a compression format or algorithm”?

The usual first answers are ZIP, RAR and Gzip. In Icillion they are worth 10 points each, the least of any level.

How many answers are there to “Name a compression format or algorithm”?

28 in all: 3 on The Tip, 5 Below the Surface, 6 in The Deep, 13 in The Abyss, and a single legendary answer Below the Iceberg.

Which answers to “Name a compression format or algorithm” are the shortest and the longest?

The shortest accepted answer is “7z” and the longest is “Burrows Wheeler transform”.

Computer Science trivia

Name a compression format or algorithm

Everyone has a first answer to “Name a compression format or algorithm”. The game is about the second, the third and the tenth: 28 answers are accepted, ranked by how rarely people think of them.

The obvious answers

These are the answers most people give first. They count, but they barely move you: 10 points each.

ZIP
RAR
Gzip

The next answers people reach for

These 5 are known, but not the first thing people say. 25 points each:

7z
Bzip2
XZ
Zstandard
LZMA

How deep does “Name a compression format or algorithm” go?

Level	Accepted answers	Points
The Tip	3	10
Below the Surface	5	25
The Deep	6	50
The Abyss	13	85
Below the Iceberg	1	100

The Deep holds 6 answers starting with B, D, H, L and R. The Abyss has 13 more, and one legendary answer waits below them all.

Inside the answer list

28 answers in total, 5 of them longer than one word.
Shortest: “7z”. Longest: “Burrows Wheeler transform”.
L, B and R are the most common first letters; together they start 61% of the answers.
3 answers can be typed more than one way: “RLE” counts as Run length encoding.

Getting below the surface

Start with L: 11 of the answers begin with it.
ZIP, RAR and Gzip are safe but shallow. Aim past them.
Go down the stack: from apps to protocols to the hardware underneath.

Play computer science trivia now See all 28 answers A–Z

Words in this prompt

Quick answers

What do most people say for “Name a compression format or algorithm”?: The usual first answers are ZIP, RAR and Gzip. In Icillion they are worth 10 points each, the least of any level.
How many answers are there to “Name a compression format or algorithm”?: 28 in all: 3 on The Tip, 5 Below the Surface, 6 in The Deep, 13 in The Abyss, and a single legendary answer Below the Iceberg.
Which answers to “Name a compression format or algorithm” are the shortest and the longest?: The shortest accepted answer is “7z” and the longest is “Burrows Wheeler transform”.

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How deep does your knowledge go?

Seven prompts a day, twenty seconds each. Obvious answers float on the tip of the iceberg; rare ones sink all the way to the trench.

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