Thanks for the quick fixes!

1.6.2 seems to have broken some basic functionality. on my core duo macbook pro running os x 10.4.11, when opening any archive with betterzip through the "open with" contextual menu, betterzip stalls, the circular progress indicator revolves indefinitely and one can not view the contents of the archive. double clicking on an archive to view its contents still seems to work though. thought i would report this.

That's strange, because BetterZip does not have any information about how it was started. Could it be that you have actually two copies of BetterZip in different folders on your hard disk and Finder uses each depending on the way you open the archive? After opening an archive, hold the Command key and click the BetterZip icon in the dock. This will reveal the location from which BetterZip was started. Is it really the same in both cases?

yes. i am sure i don't have two copies as i used the integrated update feature to get 1.6.2. nonetheless, along with the cmd-click start, i used easyfind to see if i had any other copies of betterzip laying around the hard drive and as i expected, there was only one betterzip application to be found. i am pretty careful with this stuff anyway so i also went the rebuild launch services database route to see if that changed anything, alas, it did not. hmmm...

Can you please try to re-download the new version and install it over your current one. I first uploaded a wrong disk image which I replaced shortly after, but maybe you upgraded exactly at this time. The first upload could lead to the behavior you describe. But it doesn't explain why it would happen only when you use the "Open with" command. Please let me know whether this solves the problem. Thanks!

o.k. just did that and... the malady has been cured! strange stuff.

Yeah, I was using a function that was only available in 10.5. Which leads to the hanging on 10.4. The currently available download works on both systems.