Easy to use compression software
Written: Sep 27 '00 (Updated Dec 18 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Simple, easy to use, disk spanning feature
Cons: ads
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| maceyr's Full Review: Pk Ware PKZIP 4 Full Version for PC |
PKzip is a well-known zip file compression and extraction utility. Up until recently, PKzip (as far as I'm aware of) was not a "spyware" or maybe the "spyware" portion of the program was not enabled. What is "spyware"? Well, it is basically any computer software program that "spies" or collects personal information about the user of the program (most times without the consent of the user). These programs are usually ad sponsored and most users think that it's okay to have ads on a "free utility". But what most people don't know is that these "freeware" or "spyware" collect personal information about the user such as the files they download off the net, etc. One way to find out that they "spy" on you is that they run at windows startup and go on the net to collect "ads" and download whatever personal information to their site. Most people who do not have a firewall program do not know that so the program runs undetected. More on spyware and how to get rid of them and the "spyware" portion of PKzip later in this review.
Aside from the spyware, PKzip is a great, easy to use "free" zip utility software. It doesn't take much for a beginner to figure out how to zip or unzip a file. Opening up the program, you can find the four basic menu selections: File, Compress, Extract, Help. Also, underneath the Menu selections are icons for the equivalent tasks. There is something called the Wizard which has a "wand" icon, which will provide a step-by-step process of extracting or compressing a file.
To compress or extract a file, here's what you do. You will first need to point to the location of the zip file (to extract) or the files that you want to compress (to a zip file). If you are compressing files, you'll need to provide a name for the "zipped" file . Then if you're extracting files, you'll be prompted for the location where you want the files extracted to. Then click Next and the files will either be zipped or unzipped depending on what you were doing. It's that simple!
One feature I really like about PKzip is that it allows the "spanning" of the zip files on multiple floppy disks. There is nothing more annoying than to find that you can't move a file from one computer to another because the file was bigger than the floppy's 1.44MB capacity. PKzip has this spanning feature in it already, whereas WinZip requires that you download an extra addon. It is great for computer users who don't have the money to buy an Iomega Zip drive or want to have to lug that drive to copy some files that aren't too big. When I don't have my Zip drive around, I use PKzip to move files from one computer to another or to backup some files. It's great.
I'm sure a lot of users swear by WinZip but I found that WinZip wasn't too user friendly and because I used PKzip before, I wasn't too patient to learn how to use WinZip. And, also because I like to span files over multiple disks, I was not willing to waste more time downloading an extra addon.
So, I would recommend PKzip for the easy to use interface, quick compression and extraction and stability. However, as I mentioned previously, I do not like PKzip for the "spyware" and ads. But here is a few tips on getting rid of the "ads" and hopefully stop the "spying".
If you have PKzip already installed and running, I suggest that you first disable the ad fetching program tsadbot.exe.
If you're running Win98, go to Start, Run. Type in "msconfig" (without the quotes) and press Enter. Go to the Startup tab (last tab). Scroll down to the entry for TimeSink Ad Client (or tsadbot.exe). Uncheck that entry. While you're there, you may as well uncheck any programs that you don't want to run when Windows starts. If you're not sure about what you're doing, don't uncheck any programs. Click Ok and restart your computer. You're not done. Open up Windows Explorer. Go to C:\Program files\TimeSink\AdGateway\. Find the file named tsadbot.exe. Right click on the file and select Rename. Rename the file to "renamedTsadbot.exe" (without the quotes). Done. You can continue to use the program without the ads (clogging up your hard drive and taking valuable bandwidth) and be "spied" on.
If you're running Win95. You will need to disable by going to the registry. Open Windows Explorer. Go to C:\Windows\. Double click on the file regedit.exe. Go to HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. Find the reference to the file tsadbot.exe. Delete that entry. Also, while you're there, you may want to delete any entry for programs you don't want to run at Windows Startup. If you're not sure of what you're doing. Don't delete anything. Close the registry and restart Windows. Open up Windows Explorer. Go to C:\Program files\TimeSink\AdGateway\. Find the file named tsadbot.exe. Right click on the file and select Rename. Rename the file to "renamedTsadbot.exe" (without the quotes). Done.
Also, there are many many "free" programs out there that are ad sponsored "spyware". Here's a link that lists a few of them:
http://www.infoforce.qc.ca/spyware/enknownlistfrm.html
Here's more info on spyware:
http://grc.com/optout.htm
and that Real Player is spyware:
http://grc.com/downloaders.htm
You can get rid of these spyware programs by using either of the following programs via the links:
Ad-aware
http://www.lavasoft.de/
Optout
http://grc.com/oo/program.htm
Please note that most programs will not work once the "spyware" portion is removed. You can try using my tip for the programs you want to use but you'll need to spend some time going through your directories for ads and spyware. What you can do is use the above spyware removal programs to detect and locate the files and entries. And you can disable them by renaming the files. I always don't like deleting them in case something goes wrong. I also suggest installing a firewall (like the free ZoneLab's ZoneAlarm) so that you can be notified when a spyware program attempts to access the internet.
If anyone is interested in more tips on improving computer performance, improving internet surfing speed, cleaning your hard drive, or on ZoneLab's ZoneAlarm program, please check out my reviews on those categories.
Improving computer performance
http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-1F5A-395A4C8-39AEDD85-prod1
Improving internet surfing speed
http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-7708-1A7A01E-39A9ECD3-prod1
Cleaning out the hard drive
http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-2D85-7C0D72E-39B98988-prod1
ZoneLab's ZoneAlarm Firewall
http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-363D-C2231B1-39A54FE8-prod6
Thanks for taking the time to read this review.
Recommended:
Yes
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maceyr
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