A novel approach to genetic sequence analysis is presented. This approach, based on compression of algorithms, has been launched simultaneously by Grumbach and Tahi, Milosavljevic and Rivals. To reduce the description of an object, a compression algorithm replaces some regularities in the description by special codes. Thus a compression algorithm can be applied to a sequence in order to study the presence of those regularities all over the sequence. This paper explains this ability, gives examples of compression algorithms already developed and mentions their applications. Finally, the theoretical foundations of the approach are presented in an overview of the algorithmic theory of information.