Stuffit Opinions
 

I'm curious what folks think about Stuffit Deluxe these days. I stopped using it around version 7, but I still find a use for expander on occasion. Is Stuffit Deluxe still viable these days? After all, OS X has built in compress using zip, and DMG is also great for compression. I can't remember the last time I downloaded a file in sit or sitx format, and my own comparisons show that Stuffit is slower than the OS zip, and it produces larger files. The error correction ability of sitx is good since zip and DMG do not have it. I received an email promotion for Stuffit 2010 at $29.99, so I'm wondering what's the point. The new version does create self-extracting archives and disk images, and as I mentioned, the error correction is a good thing. Opinions?

I don't think Stuffit Deluxe is good for anything. Stuffit Expander is very very rarely necessary any more.

I routinely used DropStuff to make zip files, because I have "always" used StuffIt Deluxe. Someone here pointed out that you can Control+click on a folder and the contextual menu will offer "Compress 'File name' ". The resultant zipped file is the same size as if you had used DropStuff.

Now I use the latest free StuffIt Expander and OS X's own file compression.

They call me a "freetard".

Like the OP, I dropped Stuffit Deluxe when OS X could accomplish the same things better, so I agree entirely with Chabig; Stuffit Deluxe is not needed and the vendor is just flogging a dead horse.

I just recently downloaded the full Demo. I edit commercials and found that I needed something to archive/compress my files and free up space. With a mix of the following...

.mov
.psd
.tiff
.tga

A 3gb file using Stuffit Deluxe compressed the following

.zip - 1.3gb
.tar - 1gb
.sitx - 730mb

Those results are from an external RAID via FW800. Next up is an 88gb file with the same type of contents. I'll let that run overnight and post back tomorrow with the results.

.sitx with error correction abilities is all well and good. But what happens in three years time when you want to decompress those files, and you just can't seem to find your Stuffit licence, or they haven't updated it to work with the latest operating system. Or worse, they have stopped selling it and the last version doesn't work on the latest OS that you've just upgraded to.

I've already had that experience several versions ago -- one of the reasons I don't use it any more.

Good points, I will uninstall before they charge my card. I'll try a .dmg and x-fer it to another HDD. Any other recommendations?

Me too. Hadn't used it in a while, no longer had an install for it... What a Pain!

I stopped using Stuffit when they began requiring you to sign up for promotional email just to get the free version, then making you jump through hoops to opt out.

I used it for a long, long time. And I also considered it essential software for a long, long time. That said, it hasn't been really useful for a long, long time. No need for it, don't install it. That's my vote.

Good to get rid of those ._ files.
 

Hi,

We still use our old Stuffit Delux V9 Drop Stuff apps only because dropping a folder of files onto it strips out all the invisible ._ Mac files that show up an annoy PC users receiving Zip archives done other ways.

If someone can recommend a nice simple solution that works like this, I would happily omit Stuffit altogether.

Regards,

Nick

This looks good. You could run this and Archive from the contextual menu in finder.


http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id...eteds_storecmx


There is also an Automator action that you could make a drag & drop thing out of.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id...e-forks.action

BetterZip isn't free, but I think it's worth the price of registration.

I don't know if it's sufficiently simple, but I use this script from the main Hints site with a script launcher. There are plenty of free launchers, like the built-in Script menu, Butler, Spark, and others I'm probably not thinking of right now.

I guess if that's working for you, you don't really need to change it. As you are using the ZIP format, you aren't going to have problems accessing the contents later if you decide to ditch Stuffit. Whereas if you were using the SitX format, you might have a problem.

Interesting thread this - thanks to the OP.

I just tried the OS X-only method on a 4.77Gb file and it went down in size to 4.68. Not much of a space saver, or did I do something wrong?

Depends what the file was. For instance, PDFs often have compression within the file format, so compressing further saves almost no space.

Agreed. Of course as others have noted having Stuffit Expander around is occasionally helpful as some companies still distribute files in stuffit formats. The last that I remember (bit of a surprise) is Dell's printer Driver for OSX, go figure.

As to to compression in general it is helpful for sending things across the net or sometimes to fit something onto removable media.

While .Zip is ubiquitous any file transformation as risks and one is better of keeping things in thier original format for fidelity. The Days of small HD drives or even Small Flash as pretty much passed us by.

I do remember the days on Macs and PC where many compressed their whole drive, because they were so darn small (danger danger, file loss risk). On the Mac the superior product was Disk Doubler and PC Stacker, even MS got it to the came with a swiped copy of Stacker for which they were sued and lost.

***Again though storing anything your care about compressed is a bad idea***

Sorry for the Tangent.

Ah, OK. Thanks for that - I actually tried a .dmg, for what I thought would be a clear size comparison... I'll give it a go with something else.

Gavin, the dmg was probably already compressed as part of it's own settings. Also be aware that .jpg, .gif, .pdf, .mp3, mp4 etc etc are already compressed formats by their very nature and generally won't get compressed any more than they already are.

OK, thanks for that, I did not know that at all.