Black Box 4/BlackBox.cdr/archiver/arj230.exe/WHY_ARJ.DOC

Text File | 1992-01-19 | 6KB | 119 lines

     WHY_ARJ.DOC                     January 1992


     This document describes the benefits of ARJ.  ARJ is now the trend
     setter in archivers with other archivers following suit.

     You can find reviews of ARJ in the following magazine articles:

     Computer Personlich, June 12, 1991, Leader of the Pack, Bernd
     Wiebelt and Matthias Fichtner.  In this German magazine, ARJ 2.0 was
     named Test Sieger (Test Winner) over six other archivers including
     PKZIP and LHA.  Compression, speed, documentation, and features were
     compared.

     PC Sources, July 1991, Forum, Barry Brenesal, "A new challenger, ARJ
     2.0, not only offers the speed of PKZIP, but also has the best
     compression rate of the bunch."

     Computer Shopper, September 1991, Shells, Bells, and Files:
     Compressors for All Cases, Craig Menefee.    "ARJ ... is extremely fast
     and produces excellent compression; it ... has a rich set of options.
     ... This is a mature technology, and any of these programs will do a
     fine and reliable job."

     PC Magazine, October 15, 1991, Squeeze Play, Barry Simon.    "Jung has
     combined that foundation with academic research to produce an
     impressive product. ...  If your main criterion is compressed size,
     ARJ will be one of your two main contenders, along with LHA."

     SHAREWARE Magazine, Nov-Dec 1991, Fall Releases, Joseph Speaks. "Don't
     tell the creators of ARJ that PKZIP is the standard for data
     compression.  They probably already know.    But that hasn't stopped
     them from creating a data compression utility that makes everyone -
     even the folks at PKWare - sit up and take notice. ... but compression
     statistics don't tell the whole story.  The case for using ARJ is
     strengthened by new features it debuts."

     BOARDWATCH Magazine, December 1991, ARCHIVE/COMPRESSION UTILITIES,
     "This year's analysis rendered a surprise winner.  Robert K. Jung's
     ARJ Version 2.22 is a relatively new compression utility that offers
     surprising performance.  The program emerged on the scene within the
     past year and the 2.22 version was released in October 1991.  It rated
     number one on .EXE and database files and number two behind LHarc
     Version 2.13 in our directory of 221 short text files."


     ARJ FEATURES:

     1)  ARJ provides excellent size compression compared to the other
     products currently available on the PC.

     ARJ is particularly strong compressing databases, uncompressed
     graphics files, and large documents.  One user reported that in
     compressing a 9.0 megabyte database, ARJ produced a compressed
     file of size 0.8 megabytes.

     2)  Of the leading archivers, only ARJ provides the capability of
     archiving files to multiple volume archives.  In other words, ARJ
     can archive files directly to diskettes no matter how large or how
     numerous the input files are and without requiring EXTRA disk
     space.

     This feature makes ARJ (DEARJ) especially suitable for
     distributing large software packages without the concerns about
     fitting entire files on one diskette.    ARJ will automatically
     split files when necessary and will reassemble them upon
     extraction without using any extra disk space.

     This multiple volume feature of ARJ makes it suitable as a "poor
     man's" backup utility.  ARJ saves pathname information, file
     date-time stamps, and file attributes in the archive volumes.    ARJ
     can also create an index file with information about the contents
     of each volume.  Files contained entirely within one volume are
     easily extracted using just the one volume.

     3)  The myriad number of ARJ commands and options allow the user
     outstanding flexibility in archiver usage.  No other leading PC
     archiver allows you that flexibility.

     4)  ARJ provides the facility to store EMPTY directories within its
     archives.  This makes it easier to do FULL backups and also to
     distribute software products that come with EMPTY directories.

     5)  Both ARJ self-extracting modules provide default pathname support.
     That means that you can build self-extracting archives of software
     directories containing sub-directories.  The end user of the
     self-extracting archive does not have to type any command line
     options to restore the full directory structure of the software.
     This greatly simplifies software distribution.

     6)  The ARJ archive data structure with its header structure and 32
     bit CRC provide excellent archive stability and recovery
     capabilities.    In addition, ARJ is the only archiver that allows
     you to test an archive during an archive process.  With other
     archivers, you may have already deleted the input files with a
     "move" command before you could test the built archive. In
     addition, the test feature allows one to select an actual byte for
     byte file compare with the original input files.

     7)  ARJ provides an optional security envelope facility to "lock" ARJ
     archives.  A "locked" ARJ archive cannot be modified by ARJ.  This
     provides some level of assurance to the user receiving a "locked"
     ARJ archive that the contents of the archive have not been
     tampered with.  Data integrity checks contribute to the security
     of the ARJ "lock".

     8)  ARJ has MS-DOS 3.x international language support.  This makes ARJ
     more convenient to use with international alphabets.

     9)  You will also receive strong technical support from a software
     author with many years of experience in software technical
     support.  The past year of ARJ has demonstrated that ARJ has
     improved to meet customer needs.


     end document