Anyone who has seen the movie’ Honey I shrunk the kids' can imagine how useful compression can be. Compression, which has become anonymous with Zip files workoff of the same idea only with a 'slightly' different technology.You will find a lot of data compression programs in use today and some are easier and have better features than others, so in this article I will talk about compression in general, but may through in a couple of examples for comparison.

The user should also be aware that files can only be opened with the original compression program that compressed it. Think of this as a form of protection, if you will since this is like an encrypted file or archive. Adding a password is another way to insure files are safe from prying eyes and some compression programs let you do this at any level of compression or decompression with the associated commands (update,move,feshien,add). Only individual files can be password protected not whole archives.