ZIP

From MobileRead

The Zip archive format was created by the late Phil Katz of PKWare, Inc. Phil began by creating archive utilities to create and extract files in the .ARC format used by the older Arc utility from Seaware. After legal battles with Seaware, Phil created a new archive format called Zip, and placed the format in the public domain so anyone could created archivers that used it.

Katz's original program, PKZip, still exists, as well as a Windows GUI version. But at this point, the most popular Zip archive utility is WinZip from Nico Mak.

Many archive utilities, both freeware and shareware, exist to handle Zip archives. As of Windows XP, Windows has built-in support for extracting Zip files in a feature called Zip Folders. It can also create them.