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Text File | 1995-12-12 | 10KB | 197 lines

     WHY_ARJ.DOC                                                 July 1995


     This document describes the benefits of ARJ.  ARJ is a trend setter
     in PC file archivers.

     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."

     INFO'PC, October 1992, Compression de données: 6 utilitaires du
     domaine public, Thierry Platon.  In this article, the French magazine
     awarded ARJ 2.20, the Certificat de Qualification Labo-tests InfoPC.

     PC Magazine, March 16, 1993, PKZIP Now Faster, More Efficient,
     Barry Simon.  "One of the more interesting features is the ability to
     have a .ZIP file span multiple floppy disks, but this feature is not
     nearly as well implemented as in ARJ."

     PC Magazine, October 12, 1993, ARJ: A Worthy Competitor to PKZIP,
     Barry Simon.  "We tested ARJ 2.41a against PKZIP 2.04g ... Overall,
     PKZIP proved to be faster, but compression results with the two
     programs were about equal.  Where ARJ comes out ahead is in its many
     options ...  ARJ's ability to compress data onto multiple floppy
     disks is especially good."


     ARJ FEATURES:

     1)  Registered users receive technical support from a full-time
         software author with over SIXTEEN years of experience in
         technical support and software programming.  And YES, ARJ is a
         full-time endeavor for our software company.  ARJ and REARJ
         have proven to be two of the most reliable archiver products
         available.  We test our BETA test releases with the help of
         thousands of users.

         ARJ has proven reliable and stable on numerous PC platforms
         unlike some of our competition.  This can be significant in terms
         of technical support issues for vendors using ARJ software to
         install their software.  Technical support costs due to
         installation software failures add up.  This may be the most
         significant plus of ARJ when comparing archivers.

     2)  ARJ provides excellent size compression and practical speed
     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 25 megabyte MUMPS medical database, ARJ produced
         a compressed file of size 0.17 megabytes while two other very
         popular archivers produced a compressed file of 17 plus
         megabytes.  Please note that compression results are highly
         dependent upon the type of data compressed.

     3)  Compared to the popular archivers PKZIP, LHA, ARC, PAK, and
         ZOO, only ARJ can archive up to 32,000 files at one time.  This
         enables ARJ to handle very large disk drives.

     4)  Compared to PKZIP, LHA, ARC, PAK, and ZOO, only ARJ provides
         the capability of archiving files to multiple volume archives
         no matter what the destination media.  ARJ can archive files
         directly to diskettes no matter how large 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
         inexpensive 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.  For systems with multiple drives, ARJ
         can be configured to save the DRIVE letter information, too.
         Files contained entirely within one volume are easily extracted
         using just the one volume.  There is no need to always insert the
         last diskette of the set.  In addition, the ARJ data verification
         facility unique to ARJ among archivers helps ensure reliable
         backups.

         In addition, only ARJ allows the user to restart an aborted
         backup at the disk where the failure occurred.

     5)  Compared to PKZIP, LHA, ARC, PAK, and ZOO, only ARJ provides
         multiple volume self-extracting archives.

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

     Here are some examples of ARJ's flexibility.

     a)  Search archives for text data without extracting the
         archives to disk.
     b)  Save drive letter and pathname information.
     c)  Re-order the files within an ARJ archive.
     d)  Merge two or more ARJ archives without re-compressing files.
     e)  Extract files directly to DOS devices.
     f)  Synchronize an archive and a directory of files with just a
         few commands.
     g)  Compare the contents of an archive and a directory of files
         byte for byte without extracting the archive to disk.
     h)  Allow duplicates of a file to be archived producing
         generations (versions) of a file within an archive.
     i)  Display archive creation and modification date and time.
         j)  Extract selected files based upon a text search.
         k)  Name archives automatically based upon date or time.
         l)  And much more.

     7)  ARJ provides ARJ archive compatibility from revision 1.00 to
         now.  In other words, ARJ version 1.00 can extract the files
         from an archive created by the current version of ARJ and
         vice-versa.

     8)  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.

     9)  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.  Moreover, the ARJ self-extractors allow the
         vendor to build selected command line options into the archive.
         This greatly simplifies software distribution.

     10) 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.  This
         is especially useful for verifying multi-megabyte files where a
         32 bit CRC compare would not provide sufficient reliability.

     11) ARJ optionally provides a security envelope facility to "seal"
         ARJ archives with a unique envelope signature.  A "sealed" ARJ
         archive cannot be modified by ARJ or other programs without
         destroying the envelope signature "seal".  This provides some
         level of assurance to the user receiving a "sealed" ARJ archive
         that the contents of the archive are intact as the "signer"
         intended.

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

     13) ARJ has many satisfied users in countries all over the world.
         ARJ customers include the US government and many leading
         companies including Lotus Development Corp, Hewlett Packard,
         and Novell.


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