Hardly! LOL!
Again, no logical arguments why StuffIt Expander is worse than any other app for compressing/decompressing .zip or .rar files. Only a bias against the company, based on ancient history.
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What is better? Stuffit Expander or Unarchiver?
- Thread starter matrix07
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I prefer Archive Utility to Unarchiver. Unarchiver has an annoying habit of always asking for a location and it drops open windows on the desktop when doing multiple extractions. I unarchived about 400 RAR packages yesterday in bulk and its default behaviour, which insisted on opening 400 separate windows(which I could possibly adjusted, but I couldn't be bothered) kept on crashing the Finder. Archive Utility quietly and without any fuss just drops the open files beside the package. To me, this is default Mac way of doing things and it is rather clueless of Mr Unarchiver not to realise.
StuffIt is still owned by a scammy company that requires you to register your email address so they can spam you. You can't download Expander directly without giving them your email address. Once you do, it prompts you to register again.
The Unarchiver is a simple download, no registration.
It takes up 1/6 the space of Expander.
It does everything that Expander does.
The current version supports more systems than the current version of Expander.
It works more reliably than Expander, both in my personal experience and according to online reviews.
Unless you have a totally illogical desire to use the worst tool for the job, you shouldn't be using Expander.
Not running Stuffit Expander under MacOS X, you aren't
If that's all that's running, no.
If I'm actually using my computer like a normal day, then yes. And in that case, Stuffit Expander will be far more likely to slow down my computer than Unarchiver. How is this so hard for you to understand?jW
An unarchive utility that lets you selectively unarchive?
The Unarchiver, Keka, and the Mac OS X built-in decompression merely unarchive an entire .zip (or other) archive, and into the same folder where that archive sits.
Is there some unarchiver that:
The Unarchiver, Keka, and the Mac OS X built-in decompression merely unarchive an entire .zip (or other) archive, and into the same folder where that archive sits.
Is there some unarchiver that:
- displays a list (or, better yet, the whole folder tree) of what's in the archive; and
- lets you select where the archive is decompressed?
It's been over 3 years, but I don't recall entering any email address to download or install StuffIt Expander, and I've never gotten a single email from them. If I did enter an email address, it was most likely a Mailinator address, since I rarely give any of my real email addresses when downloading software.
I never registered (or at least not with my legit info) to download or install StuffIt Expander.
SE takes up 39MB. By comparison, Adobe Reader, which I rarely use, is 283MB. I'm not sweating the diminutive size of the app.
Which would indicate Expander does everything the Unarchiver does.
I only need it to support the systems I've installed it on, which it does.
I've never had any reliability or performance issues with StuffIt Expander. Every time I used it, it performed quickly, quietly and reliably. If you can improve on 100% reliability, great! 100% reliable is sufficient for my needs.
I'm still waiting for a logical reason not to use it. I'd gladly uninstall it and use something else, if I hear of another app that offers a feature or benefit I don't have that I can use, or a reason why using it is bad for my system or some other logical reason to switch. I'm reading a lot of emotional responses, but none that offer a compelling reason not to use or recommend StuffIt Expander, along with other archive utilities. I still see no meaningful difference in day-to-day use between them.
Thank you for your opinion GGJstudios; I think pretty much anyone can make an informed decision about the relative merits of the two apps from your post.
It's not opinion. And "the relative merits of the two apps" is exactly what I'm looking for, but so far haven't gotten. I'm looking for facts that relate to day-to-day usability of these apps. So far, the only "facts" I've seen that affect daily use is:
- Unarchiver saves around 33MB of disk space by being a smaller app.
- Unarchiver runs on more systems, which may or may not affect some users.
I'm not defensive at all, and I'm quite chilled, but thanks anyway. As I said, I have no allegiance or emotional attachment to any app. When I first selected StuffIt Expander over 3 years ago, it appeared the choices were all the same, so it didn't matter which app I chose. I could have just as easily selected UnRarX or one of the others. It makes no difference to me, as long as the app does what I need it to do.So am I. Maybe you should chill and not be so defensive!
I'm looking for factual, logical reasons why it makes sense to replace StuffIt Expander with the Unarchiver or UnRarX or Keka or any other app. For day-to-day compression/uncompression of .zip or .rar files, what makes Unarchiver better than StuffIT Expander, or what makes UnRarX better than Keka, or what makes Keka better than Unarchiver?
It's perfectly understandable that most people prefer what they're familiar with. For someone who's not using any of these apps and wants to make a choice, what facts would lead them to choose one of these apps over another? From what I have seen:
They all are free.
They all can handle .zip and .rar files.
They all are small utility apps that don't require much system resources.
They all are simple to use.
What more is there to consider, beyond personal preference or bias for/against an icon or a slightly different interface or a company? What other facts prove that one app is better than another for handling .zip and .rar files?
This is a pretty good question. Basically what you want is what WinRAR's offering in Windows (and make it too complicated for some). Selectively extract file and select your own destination of said file. Let's see anyone knows what app can achieve these. I guess the best bet is some paid apps listed here.
I think everyone here is great. All the responses are just beneficial to anyone who might be looking for this kind of app.
Actually, btw, you'll find my posts do. They don't agree with interrobang's posts, so he isn't likely to use them as support, but I've found that Stuffit Expander is less efficient and that I can see a difference in the overall performance of my system when using it within a heavy workflow (which is a relatively common occurance for me). Many users would never see this, of course, since most users never max out their computer's processing power or RAM, but there is a difference in performance.
jW
Thanks, Mal. Have you tested under the same conditions (system load) while unzipping the same size files? If so, how much difference was there? Like you said, it sounds like a rather rare occurrence for most users, but at least it may be a quantifiable factor in some people's decisions.
I hope this isn't too much of a necro, but...
I have never found an OS X program that allows you to explore archives the way you can in Windows (where I use 7-zip with more than a small amount of contentment.)
My hack is to have a designated unzip folder for screwing around with things, double-click the archive, which has The Unarchiver vomit out the contents into a sub-folder there, much about, and then re-archive it, which I think uses either Keka the built-in OS X thingie to digest and then excrete out the compressed brick of crap.
Lack of a good archive explorer and Irfanview in OS X make me a sad panda.
(addenda: There's also Ez7z, but I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the guy... wtb moar info.)
I have never found an OS X program that allows you to explore archives the way you can in Windows (where I use 7-zip with more than a small amount of contentment.)
My hack is to have a designated unzip folder for screwing around with things, double-click the archive, which has The Unarchiver vomit out the contents into a sub-folder there, much about, and then re-archive it, which I think uses either Keka the built-in OS X thingie to digest and then excrete out the compressed brick of crap.
Lack of a good archive explorer and Irfanview in OS X make me a sad panda.
(addenda: There's also Ez7z, but I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the guy... wtb moar info.)
Nine days? I think your safe from accusations of necrophilia.
Despite my earlier post, The Unarchiver is now my preferred decompression utility. With me being a total doofus, I had neglected to investigate its preferences when i bagged it earlier. I now prefer to open up the decompressed files on my new collection of 20+ 4, 8, 16 and 32 GB USB flash drives to save cluttering my Mac HD. These USB things are so handy.
I think it is a great app and highly recommend it. It is a pity it won't open certain proprietary Winarchive images. The only way to open them is use Winarchiver on a Windows PC. I did that today and ended up having to place my head in a slamming car door repeatedly to relieve the pain.
Wow, is StuffIt expander still around for osx? I haven't seen it since 0S9
I see some people questioning this. I remember this being the case a few years back. I haven't used Stuffit since then either because they weren't the only ones that I started receiving spam from. I suddenly was getting lots of crap at that email address.