About Zip Files
What is a Zip File?
Zip files are files that contain other files. Typically the files in a Zip file are
compressed. Zip files usually have file names ending with ZIP, ZIPX, LZH, LHA, RAR or 7Z,
depending on how they were created. Zip files make it easy to group files and make transporting
and copying these files faster.
Typical Uses for Zip files:
- Most files available on the Internet are distributed as Zip files. Two benefits of using
Zip files for electronic file distribution are that only one file transfer operation
("download") is required to obtain all related files and file transfer time is minimized
because the files in a Zip file are compressed.
- It is often useful to send a group of related files to an associate. Rather than
distributing individual files, it is often easier to distribute the files as a Zip file to
benefit from the file grouping and compression.
- Some files are important but not used often. To save disk space simply zip these files into
a Zip file when they are not used and unzip them only when needed.
Zip file formats:
- Zip and Zipx files are the most common Zip file format. Zip files can span multiple disks
and provide both compression and file grouping. Zip files created by WinZip® can have a
.zip or .zipx file extension.
- LZH and LHA are older file formats that provide both grouping and compression, like Zip
files.
- RAR is a compression and archiving format. The compression technology is proprietary
however the decompression technology is not. WinZip does not create .rar files, but WinZip
can view and unzip the contents of .rar files.
- 7Z is a compression and archiving format. The compression technology is proprietary;
however, the decompression technology is publicly available under the GNU Lesser General Public
License. WinZip does not create .7z files, but WinZip can view and unzip the contents
of .7z files.
- TAR, Z, GZ, TAZ, and TGZ files are often found on Unix-based Internet sites. TAR stands
for "Tape ARchive". The TAR format does not provide compression; it is used only to group files.
GZ and Z files are gzip files. GZ and Z files cannot contain multiple files. TAZ and TGZ files
are TAR files compressed in the gzip format. WinZip does not provide facilities to add to or
create files in these formats, but WinZip can view and unzip the contents.
- Files with the .BZ or .BZ2 extension represent individual files that have been compressed
using the bzip2 program typically found on UNIX or Linux systems. Bzip2 is a data compressor and
not an archiver. Therefore, .BZ2 files do not contain multiple files. WinZip does not provide
facilities to create .BZ2 files, but you can use WinZip to open and extract the contents of
.BZ2 files.
- VHD and VMDK are archive formats that represent Virtual Hard Disks or Virtual Machine Disks.
WinZip does not create .vhd or .vmdk files but it can view and extract the contents of these files.
- The XZ format is a single-file compression format and does not offer archiving capabilities.
Based on the LZMA2 algorithm, the XZ format offers lossless compression which means it preserves
the original data with no loss in quality, making it ideal for distributing things like software
applications.