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Which is better .zip or .rar
(16 posts)
Almost every application or OS can work with .zip files, so they are much more portable... you can be safe to send a zip file to a friend, for instance.
Rar has better compression, but you need another utility like WinRar or the free 7-zip to use them. You wouldn't want to send a rar file to a friend unless you were sure they could use them.
Actually .7z is much less complicated.
After years of fussing with WinZip, my software guru put me on to 7Zip.
And after trying it, I promptly DE-installed WinZip.
Give 7Zip a try. I think you'll like its effectiveness and simplicity.
It will unzip files created with most other compression programs.
This is my Thanksgiving gift to y'alls.
Blessings!
The Shadow :)
And to add to your list. I use this one.
http://www.filehippo.com/downl.....ctor/4795/
I actually use Zip Genius. It has a nice integration into the right-click menu. (Windows)
To answer your original question though, I have to agree with The Geek. If the file being universal is needed, .zip will be your best. If you are zipping it for your own purposes, .rar will be better.
I agree with TheShadow though, if you include all formats, 7z has the best compression ratio.
And some other nice ones (the ones I use) are:
ExtractNow
and
IZarc.
Both are very nice if you want to unzip a whole folder full of zipped files.
Cheers,
Sarah.
Ohhh,,Thanks LH, jmcguire, SaraJames..I have a lot of work with your advises, I will try and follow all your advises. But jmcguire is correct, I need for universal things,, I mean like emails...some like that. Then .zip is the best choise for me. I will try the extract now too SarahJames. Be patience with me,, I'm only 14 and i'm a bit lost about compressors files..I apreciate all your advises guys...BK.
BK, while there are some compression formats that are faster or compress harder, you can't beat ZIP for universal compatibility. Also, ZIP support is built in to Windows XP and Vista, so if you aren't trying anything fancy, you can just compress and uncompress files and folders in Windows Explorer.
There are lots of nifty 3rd party utilities, as listed above, but it's overkill for most users.
If you are only compressing files for your own use, 7-zip or Rar are excellent choices... my point was that if you want cross-platform compatibility that works with any OS or any user, go with plain old Zip, which works perfectly fine.
It's not like disk space is a big problem these days anyway.
Edit: Personally I use 7-Zip for Windows, but I typically only compress to zip when I'm distributing files for HTG articles, for instance. I use .tar.gz most of the time on my Linux boxes.
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