ALZip

ALZip is an archive and compression utility from ESTsoft for Microsoft Windows. ALZip is a file compression program that can unzip 40 different zip file archives. ALZip can zip files into 8 different archives such as ZIP, EGG, TAR and others. Since ALZip version 8, the newly developed EGG format can be used, which supports Unicode and other features.

Sejarah
Awalnya ALZip dikembangkan pada tahun 1999 sebagai aplikasi internal di perusahaan perangkat lunak Korea Selatan ESTsoft sebagai tanggapan atas frustrasi karyawan dengan menggunakan antarmuka bahasa Inggris di WinZip.

Antarmuka Korea segera diterima dengan baik dan akhir tahun itu, ALZip dirilis untuk umum sebagai freeware. Hanya dalam waktu satu tahun, ALZip menjadi program zip paling populer di Korea dan pada Desember 2001, menjadi perangkat lunak yang paling banyak diunduh di negara tersebut. Pada tahun 2004, pangsa pasarnya mencapai 70% di Korea Selatan. Popularitas perangkat lunak dan format arsip ALZ memainkan peran besar dalam membuat ESTsoft mendapat tempat dalam Penghargaan Inovasi Digital 100 Perusahaan Teratas di Korea Selatan dengan perangkat lunak yang mendapat perhatian khusus.

Pada awal perkembangannya ALZip memperkenalkan format file ALZ untuk menangani batasan ukuran file dari format file ZIP. Kompresi ALZ tidak memiliki batas atas teoretis untuk ukuran file, karena hanya dibatasi oleh batas sistem operasi atau jumlah penyimpanan yang tersedia. Format file sudah umum di Korea.

Versi bahasa Inggris pertama dirilis pada tahun 2002. Sejak saat itu, dukungan untuk lebih dari 20 bahasa telah ditambahkan.

Versi 11.07 tersedia melalui Microsoft Store.

Licensing changes
Originally ALZip was released as pure freeware, however in October 2001 changed to free for home use, with government usage requiring a software license. In April 2002, business license was also introduced, commercial usage. Licensing was based on the honor system, and there were no nag screens.

With the version 7 release, the license was changed from freeware to adware, displaying downloaded banner ads, and finally beginning 1 December 2008, all new releases are shareware requiring a paid license except in its original Korean language, which requires no licensing fee.

With version 8.51, from 22 August 2012, ALZip changed the license so that it can be licensed free of charge. On the download page of ALZip is a serial number to copy and paste when you start AlZip, in order to have the license of the software free of charge.

Naming and mascots
The name “ALZip” was chosen, as the “AL” part is a transliteration from the Korean “aljip” (Hangul: 알집), literally EggZip. Other ALTools feature similar egghead cartoon characters as mascots for each program.

Additionally, ALZip integrates into the “New Folder” function of Windows Explorer, where new folders are created with the option of using custom icons and names.

Issues on file format
In 2003, there was a controversy over ALZip’s own compression file format ALZ, when a developer of another Korean compression utility, “빵집” insisted that ALZip users were forced to use the ALZip archiver when decompressing ALZ files. He also insisted that ESTsoft does not offer decompression libraries, and third-party archiver developers have used reverse engineering to develop their own algorithms.

The current version of “빵집” supports ALZ format. and, in ALZip 8.0 beta version, ESTsoft made some format. *.EGG