I'm actually just curious, what's the pros and cons of each?

I personally prefer Zip, but that's just my opinion.

Which one do yall prefer?

Installers for stuff over 200 megs, rars/zips for anything under that

That's what she said! And yeah, same answer as MD.

Ok, well, which one do yall prefer?

I don't create gigantic files, so usually rar/zip.

I prefer ZIP because if I do want it anymore, I can just delete it besides of doing all that uninstall ♥♥♥♥. Plus, I don't have to worry about administrative access.

Installers make the game seem more proffesional, best for commercial games.
Zips/RARs are easier. Best for free and shareware games.

I prefer RAR, but Installers are good for alot of situations.

Frankly i prefer zips because i can see whats in em. I dont trust installers.

You shouldn't be downloading files you don't trust in the first place. If you get a virus from running an untrusted executable, you deserve the hard drive failure.

When you say "Installer," are you referring to a Zip self-extracting file or an MSI file?

Additionally "installed" files only need to be "uninstalled" when they have made unmanageable edits (such as edits to the registry or added files to system directories). For example, you do not need to "uninstall" Cortex Command because it makes little or no entries into the registry. Its perfectly safe to just delete it.

Even more specifically, the file size of something should not dictate using a compressor or an installer. It should only dictate which compression format you are using.

I see no added benefit to using an installer over bzip or 7zip compression. The only benefit of an installer is that files are copy-pasted to locations specified by the software author, not by the end user.

Im talking about .msi. I dont acutally download much dodgy stuff, but im just very computer paranoid. 5 virus checkers, 3 spyware checkers, god knows how many firewalls.

My computer is locked down like Alcatraz on a very bad day.

I don't have any anti virus or anything. We are opposites.

I has Norton and Ad-Watch 07
Thats nuff to keep meh safe

Aye. Thats odd Venn. Not even 1? Hmm. Im laid back about most other things tho.

It probly is MaximDude.

I have two spyware removers and one anti-virus.

If you have more than that of either one, they can cause compatibility issues. Make sure you only have one product operating actively at a time and the rest are used as passive, on-demand scanners.

Also, you shouldn't need more than that if you know how to operate the Internets.

I would get an anti virus but AVG is a pain and all the rest of 'em cost money to do any more than scan your system...