Is Zip Coming Undone?

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the pointless-standards-battles dept

The ever popular “zip” format for compressing files may be coming apart. I remember using zip years ago to try to fit large files onto a series of floppy disks. These days, with high speed connections, huge hard drives, burnable CD-ROMs and DVDs there’s much less of a need for the compression aspect of zip files. Now, the only time I use them is to make it easier to bundle a bunch of files together into a single file. The creators of the zip format, PKWare, realizing that times are changing decided to update the format by adding “security” extensions. They figure if no one is using zip for compression any more, they might want to use it for its security features. However, in adding proprietary extensions, the zip format using those extensions is no longer compatible with other programs that offer to zip and unzip files. In fact, to compete, the more popular WinZip program decided to add their own security extensions, and now the whole zip world is getting confused. Because they all use the .zip name, no one has any idea what kind of zip file it is until they try to open it – and discover it doesn’t work with their unzipping utility of choice. This seems like a good way to shoot yourself in the foot. The reason people use zip is that it’s a standard that everyone uses. You don’t have to think about it, you just open the file. Breaking the standard makes it less valuable and opens up the opportunity for alternatives.