1) I planned to buy either Winzip, or ZipGenius. But, for some reason I seem to recall reading something a tad negative about Winzip in a possible privacy related issue/s - but am not sure what it was exactly, or where I may have read that... Could even be that in Spybot S&D there was some mention of erasing some sort of tracks, from WinZip usage? But whatever the case, any pros or cons one way or another, in your opinion about either of the above mentioned apps? 2) And the other day on this site's Updates page, someone mentioned an upgrade to SpySweeper; but when I "upgraded" I found that it was to an older ver., - a real time waster, on my dial up connection, to say the least. I gather Webroot misfired & put the wrong file on their site/server? They seem to name all program upgrades with same name, tho' the file size varies; any idea what's up with that? And has anyone else in general, noticed what a kludge SpySweeper is, as far as being slow to open, and even slower in downloading the updates, and being an app that tends to devour resources? {Sure, it may be dial up connection that makes downloads slow for us, but I think SS like TrojanHunter, gives you all the definitions everytime or most of the time, rather than smarter approach of quicker incremental updates, like AV apps normally do}? SpySweeper also claims to "protect" one from all manner of "threats," which may be innocent startups or, in my case, an uninstalled app that still seems to have a mention in the registry & and still turns up now & again - and SS once again asks to Keep or Remove it, and then if you select to "remove" something SS again adds that to the count of "threats" it protected me against. Umm... a threat, that - really? (Starting to lean toward Online Armor vs SpySweeper, judging from some of the comments I've read on this site. Any opinions on those two apps - SS vs OA - one way or another)? Am strictly asking your opinions here about apps; not out to start dufus flame war about "who's best" with what app - just want to know what you may use, why you like it, and would you buy it again if you had to do it over(?) Thanks for any info re Zip stuff/SS program update, apps, etc. Best, SG1 (Pat)
The Winzip tracks that Spybot offers to delete are simply the lists of recently opened zip files, last used directory and that kind of thing. No more sinister than, say recent files list in an office app (which if you want it to Spybot will also offer to delete).
May i suggest you winrar ? Zip is an industry standart, it's very old and so common than even office12 will use it with xml as their base filetype. What i mean is that zip have about the max speed / worst compression ever. 7zip (free), WinRar, Uharc are all more modern alternative. Rar comme pretty much the leader in compression vs time ... and uharc is alwais the most compressive ( yet very slow ) Moreover winrar alow you to open litterally all kind of archive, winzip only zip. (well it was true some year ago but i still beleive winzip don't let it's customer know that there's alot of different archive type) Also explorer alrready have a zip support wich i suppose will get better and better.
for zip programs there are three very good freeware programs which are better then alot of shareware, TUGZip, IZArc and 7-Zip. for shareware winrar is very good, with free upgrades for life, and there's another program out with a much better compression still which i forget the name of but is probably what f3x mentioned uharc.
I use 2 apps. Like f3x I use WinRAR... it's fantastic IMO. Really compresses files, and can utilise almost any form of compression. But since I also use XPlatform files for MACs, I also use the dedicated MAC's Aladdin's Stuffit proggy, Xplatformed for Windows and MACs. It uses the 'Zip' extension for Windows, or 'Sit' extension for MACs which it compresses/reads readily. Stuffit it is probably one of *the* most easiest programs to use that you would ever come across IMO. Cheers, TAS pic of WinRAR...
I'd suggest TugZip and IZArc also - both offer similar functionality (specifically offering zip/7-zip format compression/extraction with rar/ace extraction). I did encounter problems with a large 7-zip archive with IZArc though that was a beta. 7-zip (the program) has rather an idiosyncratic UI (pink highlighting!) while ZipGenius can seem rather bloated if you don't need all the extra functions it includes. Extra functionality does make for a more complex interface so if all you have to deal with are zip files, then WinZip's interface is hard to beat, though XP's own zip handling has no nag screens... As for SpySweeper, spyware prevention is far better than cure but ditching IE for Firefox/Opera and running a web filter (Firefox extensions, those included with some firewalls or a specialised one like Proxomitron) to limit what web pages can do, would be a far more efficient use of your system's resources. If SpySweeper is finding anything, then it indicates your security needs tightening up, so it may be worth keeping until you have a properly secure setup (though you should also keep an anti-virus scanner to check out any files you download).
But why not keep SpySweeper for manual scans of downloaded programs (and other files) before you install them? Then along with your AV, you'll have that extra protection to scan the files for other malware (like spyware) that most likely your AV wouldn't detect. And another vote for TUGZip. It works very good for me.
Hi Paranoid... Was it long ago or is it the beta that's available for dwld on their site? Should we go for it now or wait some more? Cheers
