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Introduction
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| Utilities that compress one or more files into one smaller file have been around since the first personal computers. These "archive" or "zip" file utilities were known by various names such as "arc", "pkarc" and "pkzip" and they were run from a command line. Considering that most personal computers back then didn't have a hard drive larger than 10 MB (if they even had one at all) and only connected via modem speeds up to 1200bps, these compression utilities were essential for saving space and shortening upload and download times. Even though today's computers have much more storage space and faster connection speeds, compression utilities are still incredibly useful. Through their modern graphical interfaces, drag and drop capability, support for multiple compression formats, and security features, they are also easier than ever to use. |
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Discussion
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One product which has really impressed me is 7-Zip. It can unpack a multi-part RAR volume embedded in a ZIP archive, and gives a meaningful error message when attempting to unpack a 256 bit encrypted WinZip archive. Even though it handles fewer archive types than some other programs (It only supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM, and DEB) it is a fantastic program that will fill 99% of all your file archiving needs. If multi-format capabilities are important to you, I'd recommend IZArc. It can read nearly 50 archive types including media formats like ISO, BIN, and IMG. It also can convert and save to 12 different formats. It can handle multi-part zip files, which 7-Zip can't. 7-Zip is a little more robust, while IZArc is a little more flexible. If you already use WinZip you'll find either 7-Zip or IZArc make excellent companion products. They can read just about all the major archive formats, including the widely used RAR. An opensource product that many here have suggested is PeaZip. Peazip is easy to use and very versitle. It is capable of extracting from archive types including ACE, ARJ, CAB, DMG, ISO, LHA, RAR, and UDF. It will run on 32 and 64 bit Windows as well vairous Linux distibutions. This is a great little program... and its opensource as well. Strictly speaking, WinRar is shareware, but as it's available as an unlimited trial (If you don't register and pay, the program simply "nags", it doesn't stop working). WinRAR's strong on general and multimedia compression, and works on non-RAR archive formats, ZIP compression and decompression, long filenames support, self-extracting archives (SFX), repairs damaged archives, authenticity verification, embedded file comments, and encryption. It supports Unicode filenames, so non-English filenames are no problem. You can manipulate many archive parameters at once, and view volume sequences as a single archive. WinRAR converts other archive formats to RAR, and allows searching for specified text and files in archives. WinRAR’s unpack feature supports ACE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, and ZIP. |
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4.65 
Open Source Freeware (includes program code) 
Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista. Command line version for Linux/Unix.
This software category is maintained by volunteer editor Joe Bennett. Registered site visitors can contact Joe by clicking here.
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ZipGenius can CREATE .tar.gz files on Windows. Couldn't figure out how to do that with jZip, IZArc, 7-Zip, or TUGzip. Only downside with ZipGenius is that I don't see any context menus so the nice "Unzip to here" selection isn't available.
I used to like IZArc but it often stopped working on my XP and Vista systems. Would start working again after uninstall/reinstall but this happened so often I got tired of it.
I wonder if TUGzip is still an active project... last update is in 2007.
Not sure if this is the proper forum, but can anyone recommend a program that will create a compressed archive based on the status of the archive bit? WinZip has this feature, allowing incremental backups of files that have changed since last backup.
"Not sure if this is the proper forum, but can anyone recommend a program that will create a compressed archive based on the status of the archive bit? WinZip has this feature, allowing incremental backups of files that have changed since last backup."
Try Cobian Backup which is freerware.
http://www.cobiansoft.com/cobianbackup.htm
thanks. I'll give it a try.
TUGZip and ZipGenius is what I recommend!
I use both WIN 2000 PRO and WIN XP, and 7-zip works perfectly. I create a folder on my desktop, move a zip file into the folder, then inside the folder, I click on the zip-file, select unzip here, and everything works quick and easy for me, who is NOT a computer geek (though I try). I do not know if it works with Vista or Windows 7; I know that for me, in Windows XP or 2000, 7-zip is TOO cool; it just works. For me, a non-techie type, 7-zip is a mandatory, must-have install.
I am running windows vista and 7-zip is working fine with vista. Anyway i dont know about windows-7 capabilites. But I guess it will work fine ( as windows-7 could be treated as a " Windows vista problem solver"). Now a days I am using "7z" to compress the data, which has better compression rates than the old "zip" and "rar" formats and can do 256-bit AES compression as well.
This area now seems somewhat dated.
PeaZip is at version 2.7, 7-zip is up to version 9.07 (a 64-bit, near final 7th beta), WinRar 3.90 has had 2 full releases and 5 beta versions since this was written, IZarc finished alpha test and publicly released as 4.0(b1) and TugZip, which apparently should get honorable mention, is now at version 3.5.
Also, it's not mentioned that WinRar has supports 7-zip archives (since version 3.6), has a 64-bit version, and has had ample 128-bit AES encrypton since version 3.8. Supporting impartiality, it would be best to give the current facts, rather than a selectively outdated "FOSS-y" view. - CM
Thanks for the heads up. I will investigate and update this review accordingly. -Joe
I use FreeCommander which has a builtin facility to inspect and unpack zip and rar files. If that's all you want to do it's an amazing program that does loads more besides
try zipGenius
i normally use 7-zip portableapps v4.57 from my usb key and it does the simple compress/extract tasks i need it to without a problem so far.
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/7-zip_portable
recently installed tugzip (v3.5) and like the gui much better. more efficient, less mouse clicks, more intuitive, suits my taste.
http://www.tugzip.com/index.php
just tested both programs to unrar 2 x 47 part RAR files, ~720 Mb each uncompressed. and both did the job very quickly and withot a problem. happy with both.
i will continue to use tugzip on my laptop, coz the gui is more to my taste. ufortunately it doesn't have a portable(apps) version (yet), so i will continue to use 7-zip poratble(apps) when i work off my usb key.
regarding free portable zip/unzip programs, peazip also has a portableapps version. haven't tried it yet (coz 7-zip has worked well for me so far), but have read many good things about it.
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/peazip_portable
thanks
mark
Back to that multi-part issue...
Yes, 7-zip runs fine on "many" multi-part RAR's. However, since RAR is NOT an open format, there's still a need to have WinRAR handy. Can't avoid this issue - many downloads are still in the CLOSED RAR format and like it or not, many still have to tote this nag-ware around... or if portable is what you need, you can Google: "WinRAR Unplugged". (I have not tried this version yet, I don't know if it has nags, and even then, it may not contain all the archive repair tools I need).
Another issue with 7-zip: A complete multi-part set is required in order to unpack ANY files at all... WinRAR alows you to unpack whatever is inside what you have (unless it spans to a none-existent file).
A nice safe-feature with 7-zip: It allows open many exe and msi files containing compression headers to see what's inside, extract, and then A/V scan. This is good, since not every A/V program is good at multi-level unpacking and deep-scanning. For those doing light forensic work, check-out the free "www.safer-networking.org/en/filealyzer" to see PE compression headers. It's all very fascinating stuff, and that includes dll's and self extractor zip-file's as well.
Question: Could "File Analyzers" be a new category in the Security section?
I second PeaZip's suggestion, I like it very much especially with the new user interface of 2.7.
If you are a sysadmin and you often have to define complex backup or restore tasks, it is very helpful allowing to export the task as a simple text file and restore it any time it is needed, or to export the task as a command line in order to perform the job from a batch script.
Otherwise, well, it's a good choice anyway, and being based (pretty much like j-Zip) on the rock solid 7-Zip codebase for handling most archive formats it is also very secure.
There's no single all-purpose winner in this review. But I do have a solid recommendation: Use 7-zip for all but multi-part rar files. For these, keep WinRar installed (nags and all). 7-zip's creator (Pavlov SF.net) has said he's not great at programming Windows functions, and that likely includes multi-part rar-file handling beyond 10 parts (it varies).
Pavlov seems to have his head in compression math, and not interface functionality (he's a humble chap though, and we've all done well by him). I dunno, maybe he's just not up on all the in's and out's of Rar formatting (which BTW, is proprietary). So keep using WinRar as a right-click option using "open with" just to be complete. (Note: WinRar will occasionally help repairing rar-files as well).
Two things I hope get cured some day:
1) 7-zip has irrational temp file usage: If your archive is on one drive, and you need to unpack it to another drive, Winrar is smart and fast - it usually unpacks it all at the destination. 7-zip seems to insist on using the system temp (regardless of settings), and then issues a system move cmd afterward. (so beware, when unpacking those huge files - until the file is unpacked, you'll need double the free space.
2) Often we'd like to view a text-file inside an archive, so we double-click a txt file and wait forever while 7-zip unpacks the whole lot to the system temp and then issues a system call to launch the associated program. In contrast, Winrar has a text viewer that indexes to the spot in the archive immediately. With 7-zip, if you've just waited 2 minutes to read that text-file, and then want to unpack it all... it still doesn't know that it's just unpacked everything, and proceeds to unpack it all again... At the small expense of program size, Pavlov could have added some current-status-table logic.
I don't want to seem like a downer on 7-zip (I'm not - like I say, it's my default archiver) but just viewing a simple text file inside a big archive can be a reason to get up for a coffee (and I have a OC'd Q6600) - Muzak24h
I too hate to knock 7-zip. it's great for creating/extracting archives. But, I tried for over an hour to get it to update an existing archive (synchronize) with no success. kept getting a "not implemented" error.
Does anyone know if there is a program that does batch compression. It should archive each folder into seperate archives.
Although no longer supported, PolderBackup batch compresses folders with a separate zip archive for each file. It offers different degrees of zip compression
http://www.xs4all.nl/~philippo/PolderBackup.htm
You can use Polder to recover files and folders. You can also use an ordinary file manager, such as Power Desk to browse, select, and recover individual files.
It is a nice, easy-to-use, well-thought-out program. I've used it with Windows XP and Windows 98.
Ed
hello does anyone know how to open a bin file there files on my gps unit i wanted to just make a back of the files so if i half to i could put them on another thumb drive, thanks any help you can give would be very nice. thanks danny from chicago
Izarc handles bin files.
After Trying all Freeware, I ended up with:
- No.1 = TUGZip
- No.2 = ZipGenius Suite
- No.3 = IZArc
I use J-zip which i think is very good too.
>> www.jzip.com/
I was checking out 7Zip and Peazip some time ago to find myself application I would stay with as the main extracting utility.
Unfortunately for Peazip I have encountered a big issue with some of the files I had that were packed with rar. After extraction, the files were corrupted and no longer usable. For some rar archives it went without issues, for some not. I don't remember now much details as it was about few months ago, and maybe the issue is fixed, but this put the trust into Peazip under really big question mark. I doubt that anyone would want to check every single file in binary editors to check whether or not it would be still usable.
One day I will give Peazip maybe a second chance, but for time being 7zip is the application meeting my needs and which I can trust.
Regards,
Ryandell
Weird... PeaZip (and JZip) extracts RAR through 7-Zip's dll, which is extensively tested and robust code.
I am using 7zip, Izarc and Peazip a long time and i must say that Izarc do the best job for its category but a few times his bloked at the moment when extracted file larger than 1GB and has succesfully extracted. Peazip is second because support less files than Izarc but for larger files has fast extraction an thats why I combining this two programs. 7zip is also good program and come 3rd...
Slobodan Rašić
Zaječar, Serbia
IZArc is No.2
Try TUGZip.
I used everything you mentioned.
Nothing beats TUGZip.
"Anyone may use this software during a test period of 40 days. Following this test period of 40 days or less, if you wish to continue to use WinRAR, you must purchase a license." This is an excerpt from WinRAR 3.80 EULA (see my post below on the subject).
To the best of my knowledge, the editor CAN'T RECOMMEND WinRAR despite it's unlimited trial. Or is there any other interpretation?
lloonn
Yes. We don't know the legal situation if you continue to use it after the trial. It's nagware, we think. That's all we know. we think it's in the interests of the community that we Review it, but we do point this out. What would you rather?
Also, we don't know the legal status of the EULA in every country in the world. Just because a company says by running this product you are agreeing to our T&C, that doesn't mean that that statement itself doesn't violate Consumer law. This is a minefield.
Continuing your logic, you can recommend ANY time-limited SHAREWARE. I doubt any law that allows you to formally accept EULA and then violate it can ban trial-restoring system tweaks. Now they are in many cases easy even for beginners. Therefore more and more people in the future will point you at these strange shareware promotions under false guise on a freeware site.
lloonn
i have no lgic, i'm a pragmatist. Couldn't we have this discussion, its interesting, on the forum ... i can setup a thread?
Sure, it's up to you to set up a thread or not, but I don't see what else I can contribute to it. I am not an international copyright lawyer to discuss where exactly in the world time-limited shareware can be legally used for free. ;-) What else can we talk about there? Every reputable site labels WinRAR as shareware and/or 40-day trial. And if you - I don't mean you personally here - have your secret reasons to keep it in your list, why would you tell this in a new thread?
lloonn
we have absolutely no secret reasons "Everything out in the open". I'll setup a thread on Monday. Those interested will just have to click on the link. We welcome frank discussion on the Forum. I have the weekend off ... to sleep. Thanx ..it's a pleasure to have "met" you & I hope we can continue in the Forum. It's kule there!
Most people only every use these apps to unzip compressed files they have downloaded, and don't need any other functionality. There should either be a separate article, or this guide needs to reflect that reality. Universal Extractor and ExtractNow seem to be the most popular apps, any others?
One also needs to conduct efficient search inside archives. There is quite old specialised Archive Peek 2.2, last updated years ago. Some archivers (IZArc, for example) have search capabilities, they have to be compared.
BTW, Universal Extractor unpacks not only standard archive types, but also Inno Setup and msi installers. This can be important - sometimes it helps to browse through user guides / help files BEFORE the installation (actually I do it all the time).
lloonn
I don't agree. Many users also use zipping to effectively compress files for storage and to preserve disk space eg. Word files. Some *.avis "shrink" from 800 MB to about 8MB in eg. 7zip.I do agree that we need to explain a bit more.
If you want Maximum Performance,
7zip looks childish compared against the 'KGB Archiver'.
performance? is that a joke? KGB is a piece of trash, it doesn't matter how powerful your PC is, it still takes ages to (un)compress files, bleh.
Never had any problem with KGB Archiver.
It has helped me to compress huge files (>>GB)
more effectively than any other .zip program.
Some sites support this claim about KGB superiority :-) over its closest rivals 7-Zip and UHarc, though I think that for some reasons - obvious to any experienced user - 7z standard has brighter prospects.
lloonn
Couldn't you guys take this "discussion" to the Forum?
I see that you, "peter", replied to my post. Those "guys" - it's me and somebody I don't know or editors of this page?
lloonn
Our Editors ALWAYS login and comment as an Editor. You can see that because they are NEVER Anonymous. This Review has a single Editor...username Joe Bennett. I'm just an ordinary Editor at Gizmo's but you can see my username at the top of each comment.
We want this type of dicussion to occur in the Forum.
Thanks for the explanation, though your first two sentences had nothing to do with my question. I didn't mean any editor is hidden behind Anonymous here. You should admit that your reaction can be interpreted as "get out of here" and I was the person who you addressed your comments to.
What should we discuss HERE then?
lloonn
It was more to address these guys rather than you personally. It was more "if you discuss this in the Forum it's more convenient" ... it's got like autonotification and stuff, & it's prettier. Then we can use this space for people just making suggestions like plz review "SuperScrubUp".
Also we have this "awkward" indentation prob. here
Hence it appears that the Reply button is simply superfluous. Your Power Editors - or whatever you call the people who can reorganize this site - may have to remove it. Otherwise why is it here?
BTW, it solves that indentation problem too.
lloonn
But on the Forum, there aren't these problems
One answer is that we close all the comments on all threads, & move all comments & discussion to the Forum. Users will see a link they just click on.
Also I meant that if the username is "Anonymous" it's not an Editor or anyone connected to the site, or even registered
Since last June (2008),
I've used TUGZip 3.5 without any problem!
The Application is Flawless, and I'm happy with it.
I read postings about Bugs,
but I assure you I've never seen such a thing up to now.
Take my word on it! Try by yourself!
I guess some 7-zip FanBoyz are trying to throw Mad at TUGZip 3.5 ...
I've tried PeaZip, IZArc, 7-Zip, ZipGenius, etc.
TUGZip 3.5 is the BEST!!!
I've had some experience with TUGZip 3.4.0.2 ... nightmare, so many bugs ... The current version is 3.5, but take a look at what the author says: "Unfortunately I am no longer able to support and work on TUGZip as much as I want, I am sure most of you already realized." http://www.tugzip.com/index.php?page=news
For the best compression available - 7-Zip with LZMA (PPMd for text-like files). I remember being surprised at its superiority over the rar format after repacking some game archives.
IZArc is noticeably slower on my system, there are also some weird logic issues present.
Apparently unlimited trial per se doesn't guarantee compliance with the license. For instance, the latter may state that you have to remove the program from your HDD after the 30-day evaluation period. If I'm not mistaken, PowerStrip is an example. So all those interested should peruse WinRAR license.
lloonn
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