A parallel implementation of gzip for modern multi-processor multi-core machines
pigz is extremely fast and very capable, plus it's packed up and provided for almost every mainstream linux distribution, and can act as a drop in replacement for gzip as it supports the same flag syntax.<p>On the bzip2 side there is pbzip2, which is also a drop in replacement, <a href="http://compression.ca/pbzip2/" rel="nofollow">http://compression.ca/pbzip2/</a>