About .ZIP File Format
The ZIP file format is the most widely-used compressed file format in the
IBM PC world.
The format was designed by Phil Katz for PKZIP, and in the
form now used (PKZIP 2 format) it uses his DEFLATE
algorithm for compression.
ZIP file format history
The ZIP file format was originally created by Phil Katz,
founder of PKWARE. Katz publicly released technical
documentation on the ZIP file format, along with the first version of his
PKZIP archiver, in January 1989.
ARC was distributed not only as the executable software, but also its C
source code.
Katz had copied ARC and converted the compression routines
from C to optimized assembler code, which made it much faster.
SEA initially tried to license Katz’s archiver, called
PKARC, but Katz refused. SEA then sued
Katz for copyright infringement and won.
During settlement, Katz still refused to license PKARC to
SEA, instead agreeing to pay SEA’s legal fees and stop
selling PKARC. He then went on to create his own file format
PKZIP, and the .ZIP format he designed was a much more
efficient compression format than .ARC. Once PKZIP was
released, many users abandoned .ARC because of its slower performance and
because Katz had successfully convinced them that he was the “good guy”
being unfairly treated by an evil corporation.
Today
Today, ZIP files use the file extension “.zip” and have the
MIME media type application/zip. A ZIP
file contains one or more files that are compressed or stored.
Many software utilities other than PKZIP itself are now available to create,
modify or open zip files, notably WinZip,
PicoZip, Info-ZIP, WinRAR and
7-Zip.
Link:
WinZip Home Page
7-Zip Home Page
WinRAR Home Page
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