I wasn't saying tar is better than zip (though if you want to read about issues with the zip file format, have a look at this post: https://games.greggman.com/game/zip-rant/ -- HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27925393). I'm just saying there's nothing about the tar file format itself that makes you loathe it, you just loathe that Windows doesn't support it. That's not a problem with tar.

I don't even know if it's true that tar is less common than zip. I know zip is incredibly common, but truly, so is tar. In the UNIX world, _everything_ happens through tar. And as someone who almost exclusively operates in the UNIX world, I interact with zip files very rarely, while I work with tarballs all the time.

Just don't blame the format for a deficiency in your operating system, that's all I'm saying.