Zip file format; advantage and disadvantage of zip file

Ans: The Zip file format is a data compression and archive format. It is used to reduce the size of original data. It contains one or more than one files that have been compressed to reduce the size of the file. Zipping a file means that you are reducing the size of your original data into small size. The zipped version of the file has a .zip extension. Suppose you have a doc file of approx 12MB (Megabytes) and you want to send it to your friend through e-mail. But the problem is that this file is taking too much time to upload. Then you can use ZIP to reduce the file size. Your original file will be reduced to 4-5MB. Microsoft has included built-in ZIP support for all the users (under the name "Compressed folder"). It is available in all the products of Microsoft since 1998. But sometimes these .zip file corrupted due to some virus attacks, power failures or incorrect operations made by applications. It may cause severe data loss to the individual or a corporate. In these situations of losing data we can use third party tools which solved our problem by applying sophisticated recovery algorithms.

Advantages of .ZIP file:

• You save storage space. Zipping large files can save up to 80 percent or more in hard disk space.
• Smaller file size drastically reduces e-mail transmission time.
• The smaller file size of e-mail messages that you want to keep is useful when your mailbox has a space limit.
• Zipping allows you to encrypt private data, helpful when sending such data over internet.

Disadvantages of .ZIP file:

It may not be possible to extract all of the files from the Zip file correctly. Damaged data can affect the entire Zip file, multiple files, or just one file.

Following errors are encountered when ZIP is corrupt:

• "Unexpected end of archive" error while opening ZIP file.
• WinZip Self-Extractor Header Corrupt. Possible Cause: Bad Disk or File Transfer Error.
• Zip file corrupt -- Cannot open file: it does not appear to be a valid zip archive.
• CRC (cyclic redundancy check) error.
• Compressed (ZIP folders error) -- Compressed (ZIP) folder is invalid or corrupted.