Zamzar is a web application

Web application

A web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.Web applications are...

 to convert files. It was created by brothers Mike and Chris Whyley in England. It allows user to convert files without downloading a software

Computer software

Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....

 tool. Users can type in a URL or upload one or more files (if they are all of the same format) from their computer, Zamzar then converts the file(s) to another format. For example, from a Flash

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

 streaming media

Streaming media

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...

 file to MP3

MP3

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

. Users receive an email with a URL from where they can download the converted file. Zamzar is currently in the public beta stage of development.

User privilege levels

Zamzar is currently free to use. However, users can pay a monthly subscription in order to access preferential features, such as online file management, shorter response and queuing times and other benefits.

The terms and conditions show no mention of security or copyright protection - it should therefore be assumed that any document submitted for conversion may end up in the public domain at best, or if valuable, its copyright may be claimed legitimately by Zamzar as authorized originators of the converted document.

Some users have also complained of random text and other errors being added to their free-version converted files. Zamzar has issued no comment.

Naming etymology

Its name comes from the novel The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world...

by Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

. The novel's main character is called Gregor Samsa and it is from his surname that Zamzar derives.