Zip

To 'zip' a file. This means to compress a data file by using the zip algorithm.

Files that have been compressed using zip have the .zip extension. For example a spreadsheet file called myfile.xls is 'zipped' into a myfile.zip file.

Compression is often quite good on spreadsheet and document files - 70% is often achieved. But zipping a JPEG or GIF file does not result in a smaller file because they are already highly compressed.

A very popular zip utility is called '7-zip' and modern operating system can also handle zipped files without an extra utility.

Many zip utilities allow the zipped file to be password protected as well, so it cannot be decompressed without the password.

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2021-05

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