Compressed vs. zipped

Solution 1:

Yes, people say zipped to mean compressed the same way they say googled to mean searched or hoovered to mean vacuumed.

The ZIP file format dates back to 1989.

Solution 2:

I would say no, they are not the same. As Ian says, there are many ways to compress a file or set of files; Zip is only one of them. It would be like using "banana" to mean any kind of fruit, or "Ford" to mean any kind of car.

I just had a frustrating conversation with my daughter the other day where she asked if I had any software to unzip a file. I told her that her computer has Windows 7, unzip software is built in, just open it. She said it didn't work. It eventually turned out that what she had was an RAR file, not a Zip. We had one of those totally unproductive conversations where she apparently couldn't comprehend what I meant when I said this was not a Zip file and unzip software would be of no value.

So maybe to many people "zip file" is becoming a generic term for any sort of compression or any file that contains multiple files embedded within it. Personally I rebel at such imprecise language.

Solution 3:

In most cases, a zipped file is compressed; However, a compressed file is not necessarily zipped.

So, no, you can not just use zipped instead of compressed, although the contrary is possible.