Post #4272920

@neilmadden@infosec.exchange These tools come from different heritages. ZIP was designed to archive compressed files. Developed in the PC DOS era and came from that mentality - it didn't even have a path for each file, no file permissions. The directory of files is stored at the end of the file, unsuitable for streaming but enables fast random access. Modern versions have paths and per-file encryption. The tar format was designed with the UNIX philosophy, originally for Tape ARchive. Streaming by design, no directory (each file has a small before it, which includes its path and permissions). Files are not compressed - if you want compression you have to pipe the output of tar into a compression utility, something modern tar implementations do themselves. Same with encryption. If your goal is to just compress a folder, both will do a decent job - but try to stream ZIP and you'll hit a wall. Random access in a tar requires going over the entire archive, which can be long. There are use cases for both.