Developer bypasses zip file storage constraint with selective HTTP downloads

A developer faced a common storage issue where they lacked space for both a large zip file and its extracted contents. They devised a method using HTTP Range requests to download only a zip file's central directory, which lists its contents, without saving the zip itself. This allows users to selectively download and extract specific files directly, saving significant disk space when only parts of an archive are needed. The developer implemented this solution as a command-line tool and later as a Chrome extension with a native helper program. However, the technique does not work on servers like GitHub that do not support HTTP Range requests for zip downloads.