Originally posted by: Mark R
Zip is a very old compression system. It has a number of weaknesses compared to modern algorithms including 'toy-grade' encryption, relatively poor compression, and poor tolerance to file corruption. Zip, however, has the benefit of great age - support for it is outstanding, with many compression/decompression programs available for every OS in use.
RAR was designed from the ground-up to be extensible and is now considerably more advanced than Zip, which has hardly changed since the late 1980s. Features that have been added include industry-grade encryption using public algorithms, full support for massive files, advanced error recovery, multiple optimised compression algorithms with automatic selection, etc. The price you pay for this, is that there are multiple versions of the software, with some features not necessarily backwards compatible.
Still, it could be worse - several different software publishers have extended Zip in similar ways to provide large file support, and enhanced encryption. The trouble is their approaches are incompatible!
Personally, I use RAR. WinRAR is quick and easy to use. The 'profiles' function in WinRAR is great for backups - I just stick a DVD-RW in the drive, double click the 'backup my photos' icon on the desktop, and WinRAR automatically updates the archive on DVD-RW. Error correction means that even if the disc develops a few unreadable sectors I am unlikely to lose any data.
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Originally posted by: Mark R
Zip is a very old compression system. It has a number of weaknesses compared to modern algorithms including 'toy-grade' encryption, relatively poor compression, and poor tolerance to file corruption. Zip, however, has the benefit of great age - support for it is outstanding, with many compression/decompression programs available for every OS in use.
RAR was designed from the ground-up to be extensible and is now considerably more advanced than Zip, which has hardly changed since the late 1980s. Features that have been added include industry-grade encryption using public algorithms, full support for massive files, advanced error recovery, multiple optimised compression algorithms with automatic selection, etc. The price you pay for this, is that there are multiple versions of the software, with some features not necessarily backwards compatible.
Still, it could be worse - several different software publishers have extended Zip in similar ways to provide large file support, and enhanced encryption. The trouble is their approaches are incompatible!
Personally, I use RAR. WinRAR is quick and easy to use. The 'profiles' function in WinRAR is great for backups - I just stick a DVD-RW in the drive, double click the 'backup my photos' icon on the desktop, and WinRAR automatically updates the archive on DVD-RW. Error correction means that even if the disc develops a few unreadable sectors I am unlikely to lose any data.
Are you sure the crappy encryption is part of the zip spec and not just crappy implimentations of encryption?
WinZip(R) version 9.0
Copyright (C) 1991 - 2004 WinZip Computing, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
WinZip 9.0
----------
Improvements in WinZip 9.0 concentrate on its core functionality:
compression, capacity, and a new, advanced data encryption
capability. Using WinZip 9.0, you can compress more data,
compress it better, and protect your sensitive documents with far
greater security.
Details of these and other enhancements follow.
Advanced encryption
-------------------
WinZip 9.0 supports 128- and 256-bit key AES encryption, which
provide much greater cryptographic security than the traditional
Zip 2.0 encryption method used in earlier versions of WinZip.
WinZip 9.0's advanced encryption (FIPS-197 certified) uses the
Rijndael cryptographic algorithm which, in 2001, was specified by
the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in
Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication 197
as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
After a three-year competition, the AES was announced by NIST as
an approved encryption technique for use by the U.S. government,
private businesses, and individuals. When properly implemented
as a key component of an overall security protocol, the AES
permits a very high degree of cryptographic security, yet is fast
and efficient in operation.
WinZip's AES encryption is just as easy to use as traditional Zip
2.0 encryption: all you have to do is select the encryption
strength and specify your password.
Note: recipients to whom you send AES-encrypted Zip files must
have a compatible Zip file utility in order to decrypt the files.
We have published the full specification for creating
WinZip-compatible AES-encrypted Zip files, and we expect that
other Zip file utility vendors will provide support for the
format.
Greater capacity
----------------
In addition to supporting the original Zip file format, WinZip
9.0 also supports the 64-bit extensions to the Zip file format.
The extended format lets you store all the data you need in Zip
files of virtually unlimited size.
The original Zip file format limited the number of member files
in a Zip file to 65,535, and the maximum size of both the Zip
file itself and any member file to 4 gigabytes. For all
practical purposes, the 64-bit extended format eliminates all
these restrictions. Using the extended format, the member file
size, Zip file size, and number of member files you can add to a
Zip file are limited only by your system's resources.
WinZip remains fully compatible with the older file format and
uses the original format whenever possible. WinZip uses the
64-bit extended format only when the limits of the original
format are exceeded.
Improved compression
--------------------
WinZip 9.0 supports the "enhanced deflate" compression method.
This compression method provides greater compression and reduces
the size of your Zip files, saving you data transmission time and
valuable disk space.
Note: versions of WinZip prior to WinZip 8.1 will not be able to
extract files compressed with this new method.
Other Changes in WinZip 9.0
---------------------------
- In addition to the new AES encryption technology, WinZip 9.0
provides a number of usability enhancements that make it easier
for you to use encryption. For example, you can now easily
encrypt the files that are already in a Zip file; previously,
files could be encrypted only while they were being added to
the Zip file.
- WinZip 9.0 makes it easier than ever for you to find the WinZip
information you need by presenting help information using the
newer Microsoft "HTML Help" facility. HTML help has a more
attractive appearance and includes many usability improvements.
- WinZip 9.0 gives you easier access to your most important file
locations in many WinZip Classic dialogs. Key dialogs such as
New Archive, Open Archive, Add, and Extract contain "places
bars" when running under Windows versions that support them.
The places bar provides quick access to your top-level
locations, usually My Computer, My Network (or Network Places),
My Documents, Recent Documents (or History), and the Desktop.
- WinZip 9.0 lets you quickly find out what is in your Zip files.
In My Computer and Windows Explorer, the tooltip that is
displayed when you position the mouse pointer over a Zip file
now contains information about the contents of your archives by
listing up to 25 of the files and folders in the archive.
- When installed under Windows XP, WinZip 9.0 installs and
registers for all users. This change makes it easier to
install WinZip in business or home environments where more than
one person uses a computer.
- WinZip 9.0 contains a number of changes to improve performance
and efficiency:
- The "Use for removable media only" option for the working
folder (in the Folders tab of the Configuration dialog) is
now set by default. This results in faster Zip file
creation in most cases.
- By default, WinZip no longer automatically displays comments
when opening Zip files that contain comments.
- In Windows XP network environments, the performance of
WinZip's Windows Explorer extensions has been improved.
- Several changes have been made to improve performance when
extracting files from archives.
- WinZip 9.0's Classic interface has been improved:
- The Extract dialog has been redesigned to display more
folders in the folder tree view and to provide more space
for typing folder names.
- Placing the mouse pointer over a truncated file name (one
that won't fit in the available space) displays a tooltip
showing the complete file name.
- Because it is an action rather than a setting, the option to
"Restore all caution messages" in the Miscellaneous tab of
the Configuration dialog has been changed from a checkbox
to a pushbutton.
- The main WinZip window now contains a watermark when used
under Windows XP with an XP-style theme.
- WinZip 9.0 no longer triggers false warnings in certain
security tools that search for programs that use the "zlib"
compression library. zlib is not a WinZip component.
Originally posted by: Megatomic
If you posed this poll to sys admins in corportate networks I would be willing to bet cash money that Winzip trounces Winrar in popularity. Anandtech members are not indicitive of the general population.
I'll go and state that at every company I've ever worked for Winzip is the standard compression/archive program in use.
Originally posted by: drag
stuff encryption.
Tarballs rule all.
Originally posted by: drag
stuff encryption.
Tarballs rule all.
Originally posted by: Megatomic
If you posed this poll to sys admins in corportate networks I would be willing to bet cash money that Winzip trounces Winrar in popularity. Anandtech members are not indicitive of the general population.
I'll go and state that at every company I've ever worked for Winzip is the standard compression/archive program in use.
Originally posted by: VanillaH
Originally posted by: TheWart
winrar
Originally posted by: VanillaH
Originally posted by: TheWart
winrar
Originally posted by: NightCrawler
Originally posted by: drag
stuff encryption.
Tarballs rule all.
TAR sucks, almost always corrupt and no error correction. WinRAR would be even better if they had recovery by default becuase almost no one adds it on when transfering a large file.
Originally posted by: Sunner
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Originally posted by: Mark R
Zip is a very old compression system. It has a number of weaknesses compared to modern algorithms including 'toy-grade' encryption, relatively poor compression, and poor tolerance to file corruption. Zip, however, has the benefit of great age - support for it is outstanding, with many compression/decompression programs available for every OS in use.
RAR was designed from the ground-up to be extensible and is now considerably more advanced than Zip, which has hardly changed since the late 1980s. Features that have been added include industry-grade encryption using public algorithms, full support for massive files, advanced error recovery, multiple optimised compression algorithms with automatic selection, etc. The price you pay for this, is that there are multiple versions of the software, with some features not necessarily backwards compatible.
Still, it could be worse - several different software publishers have extended Zip in similar ways to provide large file support, and enhanced encryption. The trouble is their approaches are incompatible!
Personally, I use RAR. WinRAR is quick and easy to use. The 'profiles' function in WinRAR is great for backups - I just stick a DVD-RW in the drive, double click the 'backup my photos' icon on the desktop, and WinRAR automatically updates the archive on DVD-RW. Error correction means that even if the disc develops a few unreadable sectors I am unlikely to lose any data.
Are you sure the crappy encryption is part of the zip spec and not just crappy implimentations of encryption?
Isn't one of the major features of the latest WinZip the addition of AES encryption?
Though I read it still had quite a few flaws.
Originally posted by: XplosiV
sdcrew3d ... Either learn to read, or use a O/S ... lol