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From: wnn@ornl.gov (Wolfgang N. Naegeli)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: StuffIt Classics thinks I have ZUC virus
Message-ID: <1991Jan2.155637.14687@cs.utk.edu>
Date: 2 Jan 91 15:56:37 GMT
Sender: news@cs.utk.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: Univ of TN, Knoxville - CS Department
Lines: 53
References:<1990Dec31.191216.22049@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> <1991Jan1.140928.9740@dhw68k.cts.com> <1991Jan1.194130.6480@cpsc.ucalgary.ca>

In article <1991Jan1.194130.6480@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> 
wieser@fsd.cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Bernhard Wieser) writes:
> I believe it is Classic's fault;  no other program I've tried seems to
> do this.

What's happened with StuffIt? The nets seem to be loaded with messages in 
recent month about people having troubles and wasting hours upon hours 
because of StuffIt Delux, and now with StuffIt Classic.
When StuffIt first became popular, there was little doubt that it was the 
best compression utility for the Mac.  It's user interface always was ugly,
but it did do more or less what it claimed it would do. For a shareware
product, some quirks and bugs didn't upset most users.

But when it went commercial, users felt they had a right to expect more. 
It seems they got more features and more problems, and dismal technical
support. Virtually all comparisons I have seen indicate that none of the
various versions of StuffIt offer a ratio of compression
per unit of time spent that comes even close to most of its newer 
competitors.

If you add all the wasted time because of installation problems, 
incompatibilities, false virus alerts, and cumbersome manipulations to 
create and manipulate archives, the performance of
StuffIt is really the pits.

Unfortunately, StuffIt Delux and Compactor are essentially threading in 
the old rut of an antiquated user interface.  Compactor at least does it
with admirable speed. Diamond and DiskDoubler have rethought the user
interface. Both are more elegant, but Diamond's
solution is not convincing because it things don't seem to be quite 
intuitive either. And it too has wasted user's time by locking up archives
that were ligitimately created with the
demo version, without warning users that such problems could occur.

DiskDoubler is very intuitive to use, the most elegant of the crop, and on 
the average competes very well in therms of compression and speed with its
competitors. Technical support also is outstanding.  Apple Computer has
bought a worldwide site license to use it internally.
I am puzzled that DiskDoubler hardly ever is mentioned on the net. Of 
course, people don't complain about what they like. But my gut feeling is
that DiskDoubler has a fairly small market share. One would expect that
Macintosh users are picky about technology and would reject inferior
solutions. But then too, I can't figure out why such large numbers of
Mac users accept all the incompatible and cumbersome stuff that Microsoft 
throws their way.

**************************************************************
Wolfgang N. Naegeli
Internet: wnn@ornl.gov     Bitnet: wnn@ornlstc
Phone: 615-574-6143        Fax: 615-574-6141 (MacFax)
QuickMail (QM-QM): Wolfgang Naegeli @ 615-574-4510
**************************************************************
Disclaimer:  The above are my personal opinions.