The article describes what a "zip" format is, what it is for, what programs work with it, and in particular, two of the most popular ones.
Beginning of the digital age
Once upon a time, not everyone could afford computers. They were bulky, and their computational abilities left much to be desired. By the way, most modern smartphones are more powerful than computers of the late 90s of the last century.
But gradually this changed, new technologies became more and more accessible, and with the transition of various enterprises and institutions to electronic document management, there was a need to transfer various files. However, as with ordinary users. At first, floppy disks were used for this, then laser disks, and in our time, flash drives with memory cards. But the first floppy disks and PC hard drives had very small memory sizes, and it became necessary to somehow compress and archive files for storage. And various kinds of archivers came to the rescue. Including a similar built-in function is also available in operating systems of the Windows family. So what is a "zip" archive?
Definition
Zip is a compressed file format. Regardless of hisoriginal form, whether it be music, film or text, after compression it acquires exactly this format, and before using it, it must be unzipped. This can be done using a "native" program or other similar software. Windows, starting with XP, has a built-in ability to reduce the size of files, the so-called compressed zip folders. You can find this feature by right-clicking on the file or folder, selecting "Send to" and then "Compressed Zip Folder". The files will then be archived and reduced in size.
However, it is worth remembering that although all types of files are compressed, the success of this operation depends on their type. For example, it's best to reduce the size of text, binaries, and system libraries, while music or movies don't lose much in size. So now we know what a "zip" archive is.
Third party software
The operating system's built-in data reduction capability is not ideal. It is greatly simplified for the sake of speed, and over time, many archiving programs have appeared with the same ability, but with a more “advanced” algorithm of work and a number of additional functions. And one of them is 7Zip, colloquially referred to as "7 zip". It has a wide range of features, such as the choice of compression method, which determines the final result and the time spent, the archive format, the ability to set a password, split "heavy" files into several parts, and so on. It also supports other formats.archiving software. It is distributed free of charge, and you can find it on the official website of the developer.
WinZip
"Win Zip" is another similar program. But its peculiarity is that it is greatly simplified and is intended for people who do not want to understand the mass of settings and work opportunities. At the output, it creates a Zip-format archive and only supports it. Simply put, it will not open the same 7 zip or rar format.
Its advantages include simplicity and high speed of work, and its disadvantages are weak compression and support for only one format. And yet the program is popular.
Mobile OS
Despite the fact that modern Internet technologies provide a fast data transfer rate, sometimes archivers are still needed, including in tablets with smartphones. For example, archiving a dozen photos or other files and sending them is easier than fiddling with each one individually. In this case, even the compression itself is optional.
So we figured out what the "zip" format is.
