Do other characters besides c compress better?

[ziggythehamster]

If you're already compressing the word manifest, I would think that m.m would compress better than c.c would.

[fractalwrench]

It's probably worth trying out a few different characters, or counting the relative frequency of each character across the whole file.

[adamyi]

I don't think it does. The most frequently used letter is 'a' (1 time in 'manifest', 2 times in 'package'). The size remains the same after changing (217 bytes before signing).