CompuServe Messages

> I'm hoping that someone will tell me that Lha and Zip don't use LZW – but no one has, yet. Version 1.x of PKzip uses LZW for most files. Version 2.x was introduced a year or two ago, primarily to avoid using LZW and to avoid the licensing that would entail. The new PKzip uses a single new method for all files and never uses any of the methods that the first one did. In other words, it's really a whole new program. A 2.x PKzip file is really nothing like a 1.x file. PKunzip is still able to de-compress any of the old files. I assume that PKware has cleared this part of it with Unisys. When this issue came up, I immediately thought of the threat to the GIF format, so I'm sure CompuServe did too. LHA uses a different method, developped by Haruyasu Yoshizaki. Neil