Mac OS X has a built in facility to zip your files on the fly and open them on double-clicking. But the only disadvantage with that is the fact that zipped files created this way add hidden files alongside, eg:

• ._filename
• .DS_filename

If you’re sending zipped files to someone on a windows machine these hidden files are of no use to them and worst of all these underscore prefixed files are visible to all and confuse users. In short, there are better ways to send zipped files from your mac. Two applications on mac that do this job really well are:

1. Yemuzip from Yellowmug (good and free)
2. BetterZip from MacItBetter (excellent but commercial). This is my preferred choice for a few reasons.

BeterZip’s interface is really inviting and clean. It enables encryption and you can extract files without having to extract the entire package. See the BetterZip screengrabs here If you’re on mac and often share zip files with friends and family who are not all on mac platform this is a worthy buy. As you can see I am trying my own trial copy and hoping to buy soon. And Robert has been more than helpful in answering questions I have had in a prompt way. Pretty happy.