In its basic form, a CAB file is quite a bit like a ZIP file, except that it's capable of performing some special feats, such as archiving a file that spans several CAB files. In fact, the compression technology that CAB files use, Lempel-Ziv encoding, is an open industry standard. What makes CAB special is that it makes it practical to group several related files, such as applets and their images or sounds, into a single file. In addition, you can package multiple CLASS files in a single CAB file. Besides the obvious time
saved by downloading the data in compressed form, you'll gain a significant advantage
by downloading a single file as opposed to multiple files: fewer connections. If a browser downloads a CAB file that contains one CLASS file and six GIF files, it makes a single connection to the server instead of seven.