PKZip and WinZip split on standards

[Theophylact]

According to this story, the two are going to be using different standards for 256-bit encryption, and the resulting .zip files will be incompatible.

Ugh.

[skuz]

pkzip...

it seems like an eternity since I used that dos command

pkzip -wexrp

[TheChronoRogue]

I didn't realize PKZip still existed... ahhh the good ol' days of dos

[griobhta]

Have to say that this is quite unfortunate. Cant imagine that many people will install both on their system to make sure that they can decode both versions. Also if it is true that pkzip havent published the changes then the likelyhood is that other zip apps will go along with the winzip version.

g

[win2kuser]

pkzip -RIP

Rest in Peace

Sorry, but WinZip seems to have the majority. I didn't even know pkware was still going

Probly find it will be another VHS vs Betamax type thing, everyone will go WinZip even though pkware might be better

Once upon a time, in the early 1990s, pkzip was an indispensible utility in DOS. Bit clumsy to remember all the switches. But it was powerful.

And fun to watch it expand its archive.

Today winzip is the leader but the latest versions of pkzip are pretty good with all features including disk spanning.

You can also get many good free utilities.

Its best in my opinion to use one and master its features/operations.

[Redwolf]

Acytually this may destroy ZIP files and their users may migrate to GZIP and RAR files. It's a possibility.

[SeanC]

Considering to the masses WinZip is almost synonimous with ZIP files now, I think WinZip will very likely become the standard. The same way Word is synonimous to a word processed document.

Sean