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.ZIP Standard to Fragment?
fudgefactor7 writes "As IDG.NET tells us, the venerable .ZIP compression standard is about to undergo a bit of a schism. PKWare and WinZip, the "big two" in the .ZIP format biz are (unfortunately) going to be making their respective releases incompatible (to an extent) and an archive made with one may not be accessible from another. The problem lies with PKWare not giving information to WinZip, thus making WinZip to go it alone."
What will my unix *zip programs be compatible with?
Trolling is a art,
The post was a little hyped. PKWare and WinZip only split on the encryption of the Zip file. I for one have long since encrypted Zip files with PGP when I needed that security. Zip encryption has always been a joke, and I doubt that too many are going to replace what ever trusted methods they have come up with for PKWare or WinZip's new method.
It is too bad that they split, but I use Zip files for compression not encryption. The compression is still cross-compatible, so life will go on.
I'm hoping that WinZip changes the file extension for their new format to make it clear to anyone who gets ahold of such a file that it is not a standard Zip file.
And how much time will it be before someone just writes a program that handles both formats natively? RAR, ACE, and all the other compressors already do handle Zip file just fine.
Oh well, I guess I'll just have to keep using WinRAR.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
So, if a fork occurs in a feature which nobody uses, does it make a sound?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Goodbye PKWare.
How much does this really matter? First of all, I bet most people are still using their unregestered shareware winzip from ages ago. Most people know that the zip encryption is pretty much worthless, so they don't bother. The people who want an encrypted zip file are probably going to encrypt it with a quality encryption program, such as gpg or pgp, AFTER they have it zipped. The person on the other end unencrypts it and then opens it. I know the article said "95% of the time it'll work", but I bet it will be more like "It'll work 99.9999% of the time".
Also, the basic format isn't changing. It's just the encryption part, so zip files will still be usuable by nearly everyone.
switching the locations of the I accept and Quit buttons every time you open it.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/State/may00/katz21052 000a.asp
What? you mean there's competing closed source applications on windows that break compatibility with each other.
Surely, you jest.
Altp.
Can I get a D?!?!
D!!!
Can I get an M?!?!
M!!!
Can I get a C?!?!
C!!!
Can I get an A?!?!
A!!!
What's that spell!?!?
Tyranny!
What's that spell!?!?
Bunch of assholes in Congress!
What's that spell!?!?
Lack of Innovation!
Dunno if either side would be big enough assholes to try it, but why couldn't you use DMCA there?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
It seems as if PKWare and Winzip are moving into the realm that is dominated by PGP and the GNU variant. PGP compresses the data when it encrypts it, so that need was taken care of already. I wouldn't use either Winzip or PKZip to send an encrypted zip file, because PGP is more universally known, and can give you 2048 bit encryption.
AFAIK, the actual zip standard hasn't changed, which means that you'll be able to open zip files with either program (or the WinXP shell... heh). That's what I see most zip files being used for anyway... Windows based shareware / freeware. Stuff where encryption is not necessary.
The venerable tar.gz and tar.bz2 formats, thankfully, will not be dictated by stupid companies. :-)
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
you would think so from the article, but reality so far has shown differently. I have already run into two instances where someone using the beta copy of winzip9 used the new format by accident and those people using pkware or xp's built in zip readers could not read the file because of some header issue or something like that. Once they rezipped the file with the winzip8 option (aparantly that's what they did as both posts said something to that effect) no one had a problem reading the file. I hope that whatever issue is causing this is removed before the release version.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Yes, I do know the answer to that, and so do most of you, but the hordes of Windows users out there do not.
What will happen is that the WinZip will win this feud, simply because it is what people use.
...and since the problem stems from PK not sharing information, UNIX zip implementations will likely behave in the same manner as WinZip.
www.wavefront-av.com
Microsoft bashing aside for the moment, since Windows XP has built in support for .zip files, does this even matter? Your average windows user doesn't use encryption, and those in the know, use better formats of security.
It does ZIP, ACE, RAR, ...
.sit (I love the fact that OS X has tar.gz built in) Hell I never send Mac friends .sit files. tar.gz all the way baby!
tar zxvf
gzip
What else exists?
Oh yea I forgot
Frankly, with the popularity of Winzip, PKWare is making a grave error. PKZip, while perfectly good, is running a distant second in popularity based on my observations. Making their product produce incompatible ZIP files is a sure way of eroding their market share even further.
.DOC files that Microsoft would not be able to read. The result would be that Corel would lose their remaining six users of their word processor.
You do that sort of thing when you are the industry leader. This would be like Corel deciding that they were going to set a new standard for
Perhaps if you find Winzip annoying, you might like to try a nice OSS alternative zip program without annoying nag screens?
I like 7-zip, it's free, has a context menu, supports tar.gz (which the native WinXP unzipper doesn't do) and it's light-weight.
Never confuse feeling with thinking.
Pretty funny coming from a guy named Vengeance...
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
I vote we go back to LZH, ARJ, or ARC
I miss the BBS days where you needed about 10 compression programs.
Also, memory serves that Philip W. Katz, the late founder of PKWare, worked with IDC to make the ZIP file format public domain, both because it wasn't entirely original to either organization, and also because it would never take off were it not. So here then we have PKWare, in the wake of the death of Katz, trying to "pull a Microsoft" and make their version incompatible with others in the hopes that more people will use their version. For that matter, I think PKWare's main claim to fame for years now has been that they were "the first".
However this has the potential to backfire. PKWare may be trying to "pull a Microsoft" but they are not Microsoft and so now they're in the position where their product now creates the incompatible file. A file made with PKZip may not work with others, a file made with WinZip almost definitely will.
Schnapple
People who break compression standards should be tarred and gzipped... I mean feathered.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The unfortunate part is that this is even being called "zip" at all. These aren't, they're zip with proprietary extensions for a completely different purpose. Zip is being used as a brand name and being "embraced and extended". Truth be told these should now be called zep or something files, not misrepresented as simply zip compressed files.
What will this all break? Well for the suckers who use the encryption they're locking themselves into that one vendor's proprietary extensions. They won't be able to send their compressed files or archives and reliably assume they'll be readable. With zip now a standard part of many OS's (even WinXP now includes it) these mislabeled files will cause confusion and increased complexity.
What can folks do about this? First reconsider corporate licenses for these increasingly un-zip applications. No need to increase the Help Desk's burden with unnecessary/non-standard extensions. Send out a memo reminding folks about policies regarding encrypting company material, the management of the keys used, and the real quality of the encryption used. Look at the free alternatives to the commercial apps, there's little that these applications do that can't be done just as well with free tools.
Zip's value lies in it being a standard. Don't support inappropriate proprietary extensions to it.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Most zip files, sorry to say, are made with WinZip now, so all that PKWare's reticence has accomplished is the balkanization of their own product.
Maybe we should just use formats based on open standards. Then the actual software people use is irrelevant.
luckily, most people stopped using pkware when they stopped using dos, so this doesn't present a problem.
Actually the DMCA does NOT allow reverse engineering of security mechanisms... like oh... pkware Encryption algorithms...
That's a real shame. I thought the zip specification was open to anyone who wanted to use it? I stopped using Zips about three months ago in favor of the 7zip format. 7zips are smaller and more secure. The best part about 7z's is that it's an open source format. Fully documented, and entirely free. They also tend to be a lot smaller than standard .zip archives. Just an opinion.
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What I find funny is that PKWARE will basically die off from this, no one I know from the workplace, friends, or even home users use anything PKWARE related. They all use Winzip or another windows tool. Hell it's been 10 year's since I even used PKZIP from PKWARE, and back then I was on a 486 machine with DOS 5.
It's also funny how people are still using a archiving format thats been around since 1988 at least, it's OLD and compresses like crap. Especially when there are SUPERIOR and much better compression formats out there such as
ARJ
JAR
RAR
UC2
ACE
All of these formats compress better then ZIP, yet you are hard pressed to find ARJ/ACE/JAR/UC2 files on the net, RAR files you may find here and there.
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you mean like DeCSS lets users decrypt and watch dvd's in the roughly the same manner the licensed technology does?
Whichever one is embedded into Windows XP.
Remembering your name in the morning is already a good start...
You can stick with the tape archiver if you want. You'll have the pleasure of waiting for your massive single file to finish decompressing, so you can then sequentially search the resulting decompressed archive for the files you actually wanted.
In the meantime, I'll be plucking decompressed files right out of the middle of my zip archives, in a fraction of the time.
Incidentally, if you're so anal about your compression ratio, why not compress with a good compressor (like bzip2) and archive with a good archiver (like zip)?
If you look at the volume of archives posted to usenet (and elsewhere) it's pretty obvious that both these are simply trying to catch up to RAR. The only thing I use winzip for now is opening windows CAB files. And I'm pretty sure winrar does that, now, too.
If you use GnuPG(GPG) or PGP to encrypt your files, you get compression too. There is absolutely NO reason to use a nonstandard compression utility to do low quality encryption.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...