I know Winzip is not free and 7-zip is free . Other than this is there any reason why I should use 7ZIP over Winzip for compression ? I am using Windows 7 .
4 Answers
There is no substantial reason that cannot be debated why 7zip or WinZip is any better than the alternative.
-
2Especially if you are using the latest version of WinZip, which supports the most valuable compression algorithm of the 7-Zip program (LZMA compression). WinZip itself may introduce potential incompatibilities that make its output files work better or worse than the output of 7-Zip with other compression programs, but it all depends on the use case of the zip files -- if it's meant for distributing an archive to the general public, you want standards compliance; if it's just in-house data backup, do whatever you want. Jan 16, 2013 at 19:02
The most important reason for me is that 7zip is open source.
The second one is 7zip supporting much more compression formats.
-
2I have not found a single compression archive that the current version of WinZip could not open up that 7-zip could.– RamhoundJan 16, 2013 at 19:50
From 7-Zip's website:
- High compression ratio in 7z format with LZMA and LZMA2 compression
- Supported formats:
- Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM
- Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DEB, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, VHD, 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 79 languages
From WinZip's website:
- Nothing said about compression ratio
- Supported formats:
- Zip, Zipx, RAR, 7Zip, BZ2, LHA/LZH and many more.
- 128- or 256-bit AES
Primarily, it depends on what you are using it for and what the person receiving the files is capable of accessing.
-
I don't really trust the 7-zip website since I know 7-zip has not had an update in nearly 3 years and WinZip has had several. So the 2-10% better ratio claim might not even still be true. Besides most of 7-Zip's list also applies to WinZip ( i.e. Integration with Windows Shell ).– RamhoundJan 16, 2013 at 19:52