TheSwordlessNinja
TheSwordlessNinja t1_j1yfh70 wrote
Reply to [ELI5] How do online compression algorithms manage to take a file that is dozens of megabytes in size and shrink it down to just a few kilobytes, while mantaining the same quality? by Karamel43
A very simple form of compression can remove repeating bytes. So imagine behind the scenes of your file you have a long series of 0x00 (zero represented in hex). That can be condensed to just 1 zero with a marker on how big it actually is (so it knows how long it should be when being decompressed in the future).
TheSwordlessNinja t1_j1yovav wrote
Reply to comment by vatbub in [ELI5] How do online compression algorithms manage to take a file that is dozens of megabytes in size and shrink it down to just a few kilobytes, while mantaining the same quality? by Karamel43
It's worth noting that lossy doesn't maintain the quality of the image