[roelschroeven]

First, I don't understand what the block size has to do with the number of threads used. I understand why one could consider the benchmarks unfair to bzip3 because they're single-threaded (depending on exactly one defines "faster"), but why do you say they are not fair towards bzip3 because of the bigger block size it uses? Do the benchmarks not use the optimal block size for each compression tool?

I can see how bzip3 is better able to exploit the characteristics of modern hardware, but that's not enough to call it faster. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and if the benchmarks show bzip3 is slower than bzip2 than bzip3 is clearly not faster (but perhaps "aiming to be faster", with some work to be done before it reaches that goal).

Better compression at a slightly slower pace can indeed be a good trade off. I'm not saying bzip3 doesn't work well. What I'm saying is that the "faster" in its description "A better, faster and stronger spiritual successor to BZip2" is not supported by the evidence.