Aladdin StuffIt Expander - 12.0.0.3

SmithMicro has really gone downhill. This was once the BEST package on the market. No, it didn't retain the smooth beauty of its Mac cousin, but it worked so dang well, there was nothing else I'd let on our PCs. Now, one can't even bypass that form on their website and NO, I don't want to give your marketing people my name/addy -- smithmicro. Get over it. You bought the product, have invested little to make it better, and you want something out of me? This isn't 'freeware' -- you the downloader will pay with spam and adverts from this company relentlessly. That's a price without a dollar sign.

Then, if you do download it, guess what -- SmithMicro coders can't even write something without relying on the .NET libraries being installed. Whatever happened to standalone applications. If you don't have the .NET extras loaded on your XP install, you'll either have to have those, or skip this program. Pity -- I don't necessarily want every piece of crap Redmond puts out on my machine, and your coders are too lazy to write better?

Third insult is the nagware adverts that will pop up EVERY time you decompress a package. I don't want ads every time I uncompress. And I'm certainly now driven away from SmithMicro and this once fine package. We won't be buying the commercial version of Deluxe. Tell your marketing department they've alienated us, and the hundreds of businesses we support.

We switched from Mac to Win and all our archives from MacOS 7 are in stuffit. Now, I need only the expander and i've to register and subscribe to their mailinglist and install the trial standard edition. Incredible stupid. They have lost us for ever, and we never will use again closed formats for archiving. Actually using 7zip.
To bypass their subscription d/l it from http://www.stuffit.com/downloads/std-downloadv.html

PS: obviously i've tried also the expander... it's an app that seems made in the early 90's. horrible and slow user interface.

I've been using StuffIt on Mac since its earliest days and I can definitely confirm this program has seen its ups and downs. Over the past two years the Mac version has stiff competition from Apple's "Create Archive" option which utilizes Unix's gzip engine to create .zip archives. Unfortunately these Mac .zip files don't open with typical Windows UnZip tools. StuffIt Expander 9.0 for Windows claims to open gz archives but it doesn't deliver on the promise -- at least not for me. It unceremoniously quits every time with a "Engine Error:Internal Error" message.

Does anybody know of a Windows UnZip tool that opens Mac/Unix gz (.zip) files? Thanks.

Bloatware that can't even accomplish the one purpose for which you might be tempted to download it - extracting .SIT files. The context menu shell extension that allows you to right click on a .SIT file and expand merely creates a folder with a bunch of 0kb files corresponding to the ones that are in the archive. How useful! Mind you, the files themselves are not extracted. Just their filenames.

If you have an older version of stuffit expander installed, dont bother with this less than stellar update. I tried the stuffit standard trial (version 7) almost 2 years ago when I downloaded the FREE stuffit expander, and then uninstalled it. All I wanted then, and all I want now, is "stuffit expander." Instead, I have to download another trial version I dont need or want, and it nukes my old expander. Now, when I double click a .ZIP or .SIT file that formerly just "expanded" for me - no fuss, no muss - I get a program that launches, tells me I have been using it for two years without paying, and promptly quits. No kidding! I uninstalled stuffit 7 a long time ago, but the preferences apparently hang around like leeches. From the download form page I thought I was getting "stuffit expander" as a "part of the download", but instead I get a "component" that is part of a non-functioning software that I don't want, but can't uninstall since I then lose any ability to expand files at all.

The developer blurb claims "What you don't want are nagging dialogs slowing you down" but neglects to tell you that you are getting a time limited trial to Standard or Deluxe, and that when it expires it becomes useless to you. The entire blurb points out features only available in STUFFIT DELUXE. Is it too much to ask that the application "stuffit expander" be made available for download once again as a simple, reliable STAND ALONE program?