zip

iZIP Archiver is an archive manager for Mac OS. Its strength is supporting all the most widely used archive formats (ZIP, ZIPX, RAR, TAR, TAR.GZ and 7ZIP) in an easy-to-use package. iZIP Archiver installs quickly and easily.

With iZIP Archiver, all archives appear as removable storage, so you can save directly to them, instead of having to move a saved file later. You can drag and drop files into and out of the archive. You can add encryption to an archive if you want to secure it, requiring a password to access the contents. The interface is simple. To … Read more

WinZip continues to push off last year's momentum with version 17 to persuade users that it remains significant in today's world of computing.

Much of what's under the hood remains solid and hasn't aged. The latest entry builds upon the 64-bit ZIP engine from 2011 by adding additional OpenCL support for multicore CPUs like Ivy Bridge and AMD Fusion. But in version 17, WinZip's redesigned ribbon interface and workflow takes the spotlight.

WinZip has opted to simplify the way users manage their archives with a redesigned ribbon. The language is easier to understand and bears … Read more

RAR Expander for Mac is a utility to create and uncompress files in RAR archives. Supposedly fully compatible with WinRAR, RAR Expander for Mac is a clean, simple app that installs in a few seconds and works flawlessly in the testing we did. Notably, RAR Expander for Mac also supports AppleScript, so you can create shell utilities to handle packing and unpacking RAR files in a larger environment.

RAR Expander for Mac works with both single and multi-part RAR archives. It also supports password-protected RAR files. To use RAR Expander for Mac you can either open the app and provide … Read more

To make sending multiple files by e-mail or other means easier, Apple includes a quick Finder contextual menu option to zip a selection of files and folders into an archive, which not only will ensure that the files stay together, but can also greatly reduce their size for the file transfer. While convenient, Apple does not provide a means to encrypt or secure the contents of the ZIP archive with a password; however, there is a way to do this if needed.

To place a file or folder into a ZIP file that is encrypted, you will need to use … Read more

WinRAR is a lightweight, flexible, and easy-to-use archiving utility that can unpack most archive formats, as well as compress to both RAR and ZIP. Free to try for 40 days ($29 for single license), WinRAR is a top dog in the compression category.

WinRAR's interface is about as simple as it gets. Start creating (or add to) an archive by dragging and dropping your files into the interface or by browsing through the Folder Tree side panel (when enabled). From there, the most common functions are laid out in the form of colorful, mostly intuitive icons along the top, … Read more

WinRAR is a lightweight, flexible, and easy-to-use archiving utility that can unpack most archive formats, as well as compress to both RAR and ZIP. Free to try for 40 days ($29 for single license), WinRAR is a top dog in the compression category.

WinRAR's interface is about as simple as it gets. Start creating (or add to) an archive by dragging and dropping your files into the interface or by browsing through the Folder Tree side panel (when enabled). From there, the most common functions are laid out in the form of colorful, mostly intuitive icons along the top, … Read more

Between external hard drives, USB drives, laptops, desktops, CDs, DVDs, and other storage locales, it can be hard to keep track of which files are stored where. DigiCat is a simple program that allows you to quickly and easily create catalogs of disk contents, making it easy to determine where files are stored when you need them.

The program's interface is fairly intuitive, though it took us a few minutes of poking around to figure out exactly how things worked. We tried to access the Help file, but, despite the presence of a Help tab, the program had no … Read more

Though I had often been grateful for it, I had never thought who had actually invented the zipper until tonight.

Again, Google's fine polymathic doodlers entered my mind and implanted another chip of knowledge.

For it seems that a Swedish-American electrical engineer named Gideon Sundback was the man who perfected the zipper.

Britain's Guardian, which, thanks to the time difference, must have enjoyed an early exposure to Google's latest doodle, explained Sundback's technological breakthrough.

While interlocking teeth had been around for a while, Sundback had stuck a dimple on the underside of each zipper tooth and … Read more