When navigating a file system via a user interface, graphical icons representing ZIP files often appear as a document or other object prominently featuring a zipper. ZIP is used as a base file format by many programs, usually under a different name. ZIP and the MIME media type application/zip. ZIP files generally use the file extensions. Most free operating systems have built in support for ZIP in similar manners to Windows and Mac OS X. Apple has included built-in ZIP support in Mac OS X 10.3 (via BOMArchiveHelper, now Archive Utility) and later. Native support was added as of the year 2000 in Windows ME. Microsoft has included built-in ZIP support (under the name 'compressed folders') in versions of Microsoft Windows since 1998 via the 'Plus! 98' addon for Windows 98.

The ZIP format was then quickly supported by many software utilities other than PKZIP. This format was originally created in 1989 and was first implemented in PKWARE, Inc.'s PKZIP utility, as a replacement for the previous ARC compression format by Thom Henderson. The ZIP file format permits a number of compression algorithms, though DEFLATE is the most common. A ZIP file may contain one or more files or directories that may have been compressed. ZIP is an archive file format that supports lossless data compression.

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