Flashes of Panic

Sometime in the late ’80s or early ’90s, a bright young man implemented a fairly effective file compression algorithm for the Mac, and distributed it as shareware. That was Stuffit, and by the mid ’90s, when I had my first Mac, the .sit files it created were the de facto standard for distributing Mac software.

At some point, the software company which had either obtained or grown up around Stuffit split the brand into Stuffit Expander and Stuffit Deluxe. Expander only worked one way (to de-compress existing archives) and was free, further enabling its spread; Stuffit Deluxe allowed Expander to handle other formats, to compress, to segment archives across multiple disks, and other fancy tricks, and cost several dozen bucks.

I don’t remember the exact sequence here, because for a few years I worked for companies which subsidized my software needs to a terrifying, yet satisfying, degree, but sometime around the millennium Stuffit Expander became an actual part of the default software set shipping with new Macs.

Also around the same time, Apple lurched towards the Unix world (which uses GNU-zipped tape archive files with the .tar.gz or just .tgz extension and started encouraging the distribution of software as disk images (.dmg files.) Software makers started distributing .dmg.tgz files, because the process of mounting the disk image offered a hook for presenting a license (even if that was the GPL.) Apple started including an “archive helper” utility which both creates and unpacks .tgz, .zip, .gz, .tar and almost every format except .sit (which still requires a license from Stuffit’s makers.) The Stuffit people, now a division of Smith Micro, had to scramble to monetize Stuffit, because their model still requires that the Expander be distributed for free, and there’s no longer an obvious reason to buy any other version.

So they throw hurdles in your way to the free software, essentially making it impossible to find your way to the download through their site without filling out a form asking for your name and email address—with no way to opt out of their follow-up emailings, at least until you’ve received some of their spam (at which point they’re required by law to let you unsubscribe.)

Too bad enough people have posted links to the direct download site. Now you can avoid their marketing form by searching for “Stuffit Expander direct download” and skip the form. (You’re not evading the license: that still pops up. When you mount the .dmg file, of course.)

Now Playing: This Town from Kids in Philly by Marah

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