what is a zip file?

Answer 1

ZIP
The ZIP file format is a popular data compression and archival format. A ZIP file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce their file size, or stored as-is.

ZIP is a fairly simple archive format that compresses every file separately. Compressing files separately allows for individual files to be retrieved without reading through other data; in theory, it may allow better compression by using different algorithms for different files.

In simple words
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When you got send your data file/media file through network..you need your data to be compressed so that it dont use much of network resources...
Solution is the ZIP (compression/decompression)

i.e.
zip it first so that its less in size later unzip it so that you can get data file without lossing anything.

Image.bmp -->Zip--->image.zip-..netwrk..->unzip-->image..bmp

hope this will help

Cheers:)

Answer 2

A zip file is a file, or more commonly a series of files that have been compressed into a file of much smaller size, by manipulating the data in the files. Because of this compression, they can't be used by the original application (eg, a picture viewer) until they are decompressed. There are plenty of free software programs around that will do this - just search on your browser.

Answer 3

The ZIP file format is a popular data compression and archival format. A ZIP file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce their file size, or stored as-is.

The format was originally designed by Phil Katz for PKZIP. However, many software utilities other than PKZIP itself are now available to create, modify, or open (unzip, decompress) ZIP files, notably WinZip, BOMArchiveHelper, KGB Archiver, PicoZip, Info-ZIP, WinRAR, IZArc, 7-Zip, ALZip, TUGZip, Universal Extractor and Zip Genius. Microsoft has included built-in ZIP support (under the name "compressed folders") in later versions of its Windows operating system. Apple has included built-in ZIP support in Mac OS X 10.3 and later via the BOMArchiveHelper utility.

ZIP files generally use the file extensions ".zip" or ".ZIP" and the MIME media type application/zip. Some software uses the ZIP file format as a wrapper for a large number of small items in a specific structure. Generally when this is done a different file extension is used. Examples of this usage are Java JAR files, id Software .pk3/.pk4 files, package files for StepMania and Winamp/Windows Media Player skins, XPInstall, as well as OpenDocument and Office Open XML office formats. Both OpenDocument and Office Open XML formats use the JAR file format internally, so files can be easily uncompressed and compressed using tools for ZIP files. Google Earth makes use of KMZ files, which are just KML files in ZIP format.

Answer 4

A zip file is a bunch of files that have been compressed in order to take up less space and download faster. They need to be unpacked using a program like WinRAR. However, you need to make sure you know what is in the zip file if you downloaded it, because it could contain malicious files.

Answer 5

a file that has been compressed in order to take up less space on a hard drive or download faster over the Internet.

You can open them with Winzip

http://www.winzip.com

Answer 6

How old are you?