Hello RAYMOND!
(Fri Sep 26 1997) RAYMOND BRODEUR wrote to ALL...
 RB> I never understood why people like ARJ so much..
Some people (like me) use ARJ long enough and consider it a reliable and fast 
packer. As one of the first Russian ARJ users, in 1991, I have tested 
compression of a 400K text file with several popular archivers available on 
public domain. ARJ showed the best results (about 113K) and not the worst 
speed (on a 16 MHz 80286, it was fast enough). Now I just don't have time to 
repack gigabytes of my old archives with something else.
 RB>  it's a very big EXE file, the options can be found in most any other
 RB> compression program,
I don't remember any other shareware compression program which has such a 
plenty of options, and, what is more important, is so flexible. Yes, there's 
RAR available now, but it is much bigger and slower, it doesn't have a 
backward compatibility, and the compression ratio is oftenly not much better 
than one reached by ARJ.
 RB> and actually the only cool thing about it is the multiple volumes...
Multiple volume option is available in RAR... did you know it? ;-)
 RB> but even at that, RAR is more fun...
RAR (especially, RAR v 2.0) has many glitches which make it really a "funny" 
archiver, and not more. For example, RAR uses swapping to different types of 
memory, including disk drives. So, when you compress/unpack a really big file 
(10 megabytes may be enough), the process becomes too slow, and you may run 
out of disk space, with temporary swap file spreading on last megabytes of 
your HDD.
The another major glitch is the memory requirement. Generally, RAR needs much 
more conventional memory than ARJ and it may utilize EMS for better 
performance. ARJ doesn't need it, and runs quite quickly, in my opinion.
 RB> so if someone out there knows why ARJ is so famous (and why!) please
 RB> reply soon...
It was the best archiver a few years ago - so there are still many fans of 
ARJ, however, newer products sometimes have more cool options and better 
compression... but it's your choice which program to use...
                                                     Andrew
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