ARJ

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ARJ is a tool for creating compressed file archives. It was invented by Robert K. Jung. ARJ probably stands for Archiver Robert Jung. It is no longer in wide use.

ARJ's compression is somewhat similar to that of PKZIP 1.02. Parts of ARJ were covered by U.S. Patent 5140321 . It was available for license under more friendly terms than PKZIP. Never wildly popular, its heyday was during the BBS era in part because it could create multi-volume archives (splitting a big archive into smaller files). ARJ also allowed the user to alter the level of an archive's compression, making it popular on small packet mail networks such as WWIVNet and HOGnet, who used lower compression settings to take advantage of modem-based compression (such as MNP or v.42bis) in order to reduce the long distance bills which invariably came with membership in such networks. Since those days, ARJ has lost much of its market share to RAR and other formats; the lack of a graphical interface has also contributed to its virtual disappearance from the desktop world.

Due to its powerful feature about splitting archives, some people use ARJ to do regular backup of hard disks by floppy disks. A very interesting feature which seems to be missing from all the other popular archivers (March 2006), is the ability to add, delete and/or modify files in a multi-volume archive.