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