As a veteran user of PKZip 2 for DOS, I have been tempted for 2 years to get a native Windows 95 Zip program, but my shareware zipping heydays have receded for lack of interest in long download times even for zipped files, and for fear of viruses attacking my computer, for which I have enough useful, interesting software. Most of the freebies you download do not have reliable un-installation routines, and sometimes these interfere with my favorite applications, so you avoid this hassle by not installing lots of shareware, except when about to reformat the hard drive and reload everything.

Time was when nobody could afford big graphics and office suites, so they browsed for and downloaded nice freebies on the BBS's and the Internet. Only occasionally did PKZip come up short for me, since I knew how to manage it using DOS in a window, although the long file names were inconveniently truncated. One shortcoming was PKZip's inability to decompress GZ formats found on the Internet, but those formats were usually for high end graphics applications on Unix systems, I figured, or Amiga's or Mac's.

NetZip 6.0 claims to be the first resident Windows 95 unzipper that includes a browser plug-in so you can view and download parts of large archives over the internet, thus preserving bandwidth. It is new, but the Internet capability hinges on whether the website you find zipped files on is running Quarterdeck's I.Zip server. There is a competitor now, Browse and Zip by Canyon Software, and it is evident that such programs can be successfully used only at websites with a server that can offer zipped files for peeking and nibbling from afar. NetZip handles a variety of zip formats, like GZ.

One undesirable feature begins at installation time. The installation process reset my default browser from Netscape to Internet Explorer, even though the plug-in works in either. I am apprehensive about programs that do too much automatically without consent of the user; so fortunately, there is a NetZip setting to not automatically open a downloaded zip file, thus providing a chance to scan for viruses manually.

NetZip comes with a browser plug-in and a standalone program, each for zipping, unzipping, viewing parts of zipped files, temporarily extracting files for testing, and just plain installing them. Because installations often irreversibly interfere with previously installed favorite applications, I performed no installation experiments. I have no idea if it works seamlessly with an uninstaller program, and veteran installers know that most installations ask you to close every other program anyway. For both the plug-in, and the standalone program, zipping and unzipping of archives in a variety of compressed formats was as easy as drag and drop and right-click, and each provides the standard list of the archives' content files.

NetZip has a viewer that is useful for a variety of formats, except my AVI's. It opens a new instance for every file you want to view, so be careful not to multiple-select too many! For those who trust Java applets cannot damage your data, "Surprise!" The browser plug-in is Java-based, and it certainly does access your hard drive, even installing and running other programs. Also, the URLs of I.Zip servers are not commonly known, and even the tech support people could not name any within a week, while the one example in the book had a typo that was at least correctable by guesswork. There was just one server with only one file to practice viewing remotely over the Internet. Presumably the market for NetZip is mainly for clients of intranet or internet web servers with large archives containing lots of files in each archive, and chopping up the archives into smaller pieces is considered too awkward or inefficient. At least I was able to simulate remote partial-accessing of multi-file archives on my network (with suitable permissions defined), without the I.Zip server.

If you try to access a zip file on a web server that is not an I.Zip server, the file automatically downloads, with no size information or "open or save to disk" dialog box. That could slow you down if you unwittingly begin to download a 10 Meg ZIP files. Once downloaded, a list of contents is displayed, and you can extract or install or view parts or cancel. NetZip overlooks the possibility that you may not want to unzip the file at first, but move it for use in another place on your network.

Extraction is a kind of temporary installation, but a DLL by any other name will still clutter your Windows directory, virtually uninstallable. You have no idea whether a zip file of a program will automatically install or just create a temporary installation directory. You may also incorrectly save a file without knowing its true file association. Another quirk is there is a 128-character limit to extraction-file-path commands, so forget about putting anything on your desktop or nesting target directories deeply. The strength of NetZip is with the use of the I.Zip ZIP file FTP or WWW server. If you dare, get a free demo at http://www.qdeck.com/qdeck/products/izip/. It costs $500. Obviously this program combination is least-complicated for people who want to preview parts of large zip archives, usually containing GIF and JPEG images, but it may also be nice for intranets with a kind of push-install-reformat-your-hard-drive technology. This server will prove valuable for those with archives of large zip files of directories containing lots of files, and save space and time for both the client and the server.