When you are working with files every day you come across compressed files regularly or the need to compress files. Today Microsoft Windows (I don’t about other systems) since XP has a built in support for the zip format. But what about other formats such as rar? There is a free solution that I recommend and use for the last couple of years, 7-Zip.
7-Zip is a free and fast archiver. you can find the latest version here http://www.7-zip.org/
The main features of 7-Zip according their official site:
- High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
- Supported formats:
- Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
- Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.
- For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
- Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
- Self-extracting capability for 7z format
- Integration with Windows Shell
- Powerful File Manager
- Powerful command line version
- Plugin for FAR Manager
- Localizations for 74 languages
