Two compression utilities are the most popular: WinZip and PKZip for Windows. Both of these babies can compress, but which one is better?

Simple and uncluttered, that's PKZip. When you launch it, you see just a four-item text menu and three icons. The icons, called New, Open, and Wizard, handle most compression jobs, and the text menus are smart, too.

Choose ``Compress - Add Files,'' for instance, and if you don't have a ZIP file open already, PKZip launches the Wizard and helps you create one. Plus, PKZip lets you set preferences for each menu item, and it lets you use theright-click menu to compress a file. The utility also offers one-way drag-and-drop, so while you can't drag files from a ZIP file to another application, you can add files to any ZIP archive.

PKZip's basic tools are solid. It lets you UU encode files, and it lets you expand TAR, GZIP, MIME, BinHex, UU encode and XX encode formats, too. It also lets you create self-extracting archives to send to users who don't have a zip utility, and save a compressed file on multiple floppy disks.

Its compression settings are vast, including one called Extra, which compresses files to the maximum (but which also makes them zip and unzip a bit more slowly). PKZip's ZIP-file management, however, is limited to Add, Remove, and Open--less powerful than WinZip, which adds the CheckOut option to the mix.

PKZip performs solidly. At maximum compression, it produced files just a few hundred bytes larger than the ones WinZip creates. On a high-end machine, PKZip compressed a mixture of ASCII and binary files slightly fasterthan WinZip, though on a low-end Pentium system, it compressed files lightly slower.

WinZip caters to all users. Its Wizard mode, for novice users, won't let you create ZIP files, but it walks you through the unzipping process. It even scans your hard drive to locate lost ZIP files, and gives you a list of ZIPs to choose from. WinZip's Classic mode, for advanced users, holds your hand less, and gives you full access to all features, including creating ZIP files.

You can easily toggle between the two modes. WinZip also lets you use the right-click menu to create and unzip files, and its bidirectional drag-an-drop feature lets you add, extract, and launch files without using the keyboard--it automatically picks a folder or ZIP name for you.

WinZip also adds .UUE encoding and decoding to its ZIP support, and decodes XX encode files and the TAR, LZH, ARJ, ZIP, and ARC formats as well. It lets you save a compressed file on multiple disks, and create self-extracting files (though only version 7 allows youto save these on multiple disks); it also offers the same compression settings as PKZip. Its file-management tools are excellent, since it adds CheckOut to the standard Add, Remove, and Open options.

CheckOut lets you sample the contents of zipped files without having to manually unzip, test, and remove any files. WinZip also performed well. Its heavily compressed files were ever-so-slightly smaller than PKZip's, but the margin is too tight to be statistically significant.

Even though WinZip's Wizard can't help you create compressed files, this utility's interface is simply stronger than PKZip's. WinZip's more powerful drag-and-drop support and its extra right-click functionality simplify day-to-day compression and extraction asks and make it easier to extract and edit files on the fly.

Unlike PKZip, for example, WinZip lets you drag and drop any file from the ZIP archive window into an application and then view and edit its contents. PKZip's interface works, but WinZip's seamless power puts it overthe top.

Simply put, WinZip offers every tool that PKZip does, and more. It has a nifty ``Install'' feature, which lets you install applications with a single click, and even though PKZip offers a similar feature on its Distribution License version (called ``Run application after extraction''), you'll have to pay an extra $599 to get it (that's how much more the D.L. version costs).

The results? WinZip and PKZip finished in a dead heat. They cancelled each other out in speed on low- and high-end systems, and their compressed file sizes were virtually identical. The moral of the story? Don't sweat the numbers. You'll get roughly the same performance from either utility, so it's better to concentrate on their features.

PKZip for Windows is a worthy challenger, but it needs a little bit more oomph to dethrone the champ. Whether it's UI touches or file management, WinZip's just a little bit better. Performance is about the same, but feature-for-feature, WinZip gives you more. Feature-for-feature, WinZiptakes the cake.

Plus, WinZip's a bargain. You can buy an individual copy for only $29 (a lot less than PKZip for Windows' $39 electronic version or its $49 packaged version), and if you're buying a site licence, WinZip's prices are considerably cheaper than PKZip's, too.