Zstandard, or zstd for short, is a new lossless data compression algorithm developed by Facebook. zstd is marketed as a "fast lossless compression algorithm, targeting real-time compression scenarios at zlib-level and better compression ratios." While the algorithm is designed to be used for real-time compression, Ubuntu developers have been successfully trying to unpack Linux packages faster than with Xz and Gzip through zstd. Based on Canonical's tests using Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, the algorithm works perfectly with no need for additional use of memory or CPU power. Through the tests made by the Ubuntu team, zstd seems to have speeds improving by 10% from the original Xz and Gzip tools used by the OS. "Zstd is a compression algorithm developed by Facebook that offers far higher decompression speeds than xz or even gzip (at roughly constant speed and memory usage across all levels), while offering 19 compression levels ranging from roughly comparable to gzip in size (but much faster...
