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It takes time to download programs, and so the faster these downloads are the better for you. Also, the web servers giving you these downloads are paying for the bandwidth to supply them to you, and they want to keep their costs at a minimum. Enter compression utilities.

Compression utilities pack and unpack files, looking for patterns in the files and storing their contents in considerably less space. The Internet uses any one of a number of compression technologies and file formats, but 'ZIP' is by far the most popular with home PC users.

ZIP is a format proprietary to one Phil Katz who once ripped off another format called ARC. He was a hotter programmer than the people who originally wrote the ARC compressor, but he did rip off their code. The ARC people got an injunction against Katz and Katz settled out of court, agreeing to never use ARC compression technology again. Instead, he came up with his own format, which he called 'ZIP', and in the world of the PC, ZIP is king.

Phil Katz' products are no longer market leaders, however. In fact, because the Katz products are using built-in advertising, it's not advisable to use even the free or trial versions.

The most popular ZIP program is WinZip. WinZip comes on a 21 day evaluation, and costs all of $29, but you have to have some kind of ZIP utility on board. If you think you can find something adequate and free at one of the software archives however, by all means go for it.

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