this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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The xz package has been backdoored, you need to update your system now (archlinux.org)
submitted 8 months ago by Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz to c/archlinux@lemmy.ml
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[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Ah I see. Are there any reasons why people would choose to use xz over zlib?

[–] Supermariofan67@programming.dev 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It compresses much better, by a lot, as zlib/deflate is an ancient algorithm made back when computers only had a few megabytes of ram.

Nowadays though, zstd seems to be replacing both of them, as at max level it compresses about as well as xz while also being faster. Nevertheless, many programs link against all the common compression algorithms (xz/zlib/zstd/bz2) to support everything