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Lossless data compression is a class of data compression algorithms that allows the exact original data to be reconstructed from the compressed data. (ZIP, GZIP, PNG, GIF)

The term lossless is in contrast to Lossy data compression, which only allows an approximation of the original data to be reconstructed, in exchange for better compression rates. (A data encoding method that compresses data by discarding “losing” some of it.) (VOIP, STREAMING AUDIO, JPEG, TIFF)


The advantage of lossy methods over lossless methods is that in some cases a lossy method can produce a much smaller compressed file than any lossless method, while still meeting the requirements of the application.



  1. jspeak posted this