Winzip owned by the "Winzip Computing" was later acquired May 2, 2006, in Ottawa, by Corel Corporation and is currently (March 2010) reached version 14.0.9029.

The program is shareware, and becomes a fee after a trial period of 40 days, after which the program is no longer able to open compressed archives.

The Windows operating system since Windows XP, however, has a command to create and open compressed files (right click, "Send To / Compressed Folder" or "Open With / Compressed Folders"), even in proprietary formats, such as Winzip, WinRAR, Win Ace, jZip Ultimate Zip.

Winzip, like the main, using proprietary formats, but open-source compression algorithms, whose specification is public and Free, and therefore Windows is unable to decipher.

These algorithms "lossless", without loss of information: the zip file extracted from the archive is identical to that of departure, before the compression. The compression works by changing the basis of the first file from binary to hexadecimal or greater, which requires a smaller number of bits, and other devices, operates at a low level, which does not take into account the semantics and the extension of the file departure.

From Winzip executable files are created, with the extension. Exe, indispensable to the Software Installation in Windows operating systems. These files, while created with Winzip, are opened directly from the operating system.

Winzip has a feature called "Winzip Self Extractor", which creates self-extracting archive. Just Downloaded, call Winzip to open them. Sometimes it is also self-installing file, which also open the contents of the archive, such as malware, dialers, viruses. An installation option allows you to disable the automatic opening and / or auto-installation of these files on your computer.

The latest versions of Winzip archives also allow the use of type. Rar, this can be done only using Winzip 11. The software also allows you to encrypt files and folders and files that are "zipped" in order to make it very difficult to access such content to any unauthorized person protecting the materials zipped with passwords.

The encryption algorithm used in the latest version of Win Zip 256-bit AES encryption, but you can still use the 128 bit to ensure greater compatibility with previous versions of the program (up to Winzip8, standard).
Considerations on certain types of files [edit]

In some cases, for some files it seems that the compression process does not lead to any benefit in terms of space savings. This happens for example with the files have the extension jpeg. The reason for this behavior is not caused by a malfunction of the program, but the fact that this type of files are already compressed: a new compression does not lead to a further drop in space. To bmp files (Microsoft's proprietary format), but the compression can significantly reduce the file size.

Same goes for the music in mp3 format and movies in DivX format, or ancestors. Since the extensions are already compressed, creating a file. Zipper does not decrease significantly the size of the files.