I've been successfully playing around with ZLIB.DLL.
Got example VB source code, and adapted to VFP.

Once you get it right, it's so simple. And it's free.
The compression (based on GZIP) works best on large
strings. Smaller strings come out larger.

The code is still rough, but it's getting there.
I will be able to produce a .prg soon with two
simple functions : compress() and decompress().

Meanwhile, for the curious and C enabled, visit:
ftp://ftp.freesoftware.com/pub/infozip/zlib/

VB programmers using ZLIB are touting the usage
with XML - compressing/decompressing large XML datasets
between two servers. You could even use XML and comp/decomp
for client/server over the Internet.

Ah, the possibilities.

An added bonus for my project:
I had text lines larger than 254 bytes that I need to store in a table
and have that field indexed.
Well, lines of 280 - 300 bytes are compressed to 190-210 bytes.
Just small enough to fit in a 254 char field and be indexed.