: Archives can be password-protected and encrypted to secure sensitive data during transfer. How to Download and Use a ZIP File Zip and unzip files - Microsoft Support

are a standard digital archive format used to bundle and compress one or more files into a single, smaller package with the .zip extension. By reducing file size, they significantly decrease download times and storage requirements. Core Benefits of ZIP Files

: ZIP archives use lossless data compression (most commonly the DEFLATE algorithm) to reduce file sizes by 5% to 80% without losing any original data.