One of the issues which is constantly surfacing on the internet is the speed at which data is transmitted. The larger the object, the longer it takes to transmit. This was an especially critical problem in the earlier years of the internet (before the advent of broadband and other fast networks).

One common solution was to compress the information so that it took less physical space and thus required less time to transmit.

A solution that took hold early on was a ZIP file, which is simply an archive (collection) of files which is compressed. A utility must be used to compress and decompress these files. A common utility is called WinZIP.

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