Best compression applications for Windows?

Question

What is the best zip application for Windows? I've always used Power Archiver, but I think I've come to the conclusion it's a bit annoying and its interface is too busy.

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Summary of popular zip utilities from answers:

• 7-Zip
• Winrar
• IZarc
• ALZip

Answer 1

7-Zip

• It handles all major formats and works incredibly fast.
• And is free.
• And has great Windows integration via context menus.
• Small footprint
• Let you explore archives without extracting them.
• And you can use it in the shell.
• Supports multi-volume archives.
• Mostly licensed under LGPL

Answer 2

I like WinRAR. You can interact with it by just right clicking on files.

Answer 3

I use 7-Zip with the 7z format regularly, but when I need extreme compression (transferring very large files from customer to my local PC) I use CCMX. The downside is that it can only compress/decompress only one file by archive. In that case I then use PKZIP or 7-Zip to create the archive with no compression (PKZIP -e0) and then compress the resulting archive with CCMX.

You can see a very detailed comparison of compression programs at Compression Programs.

My informal comparison: a 28 MB directory of application data files:

Uncompressed: 24.467.111 by
PKZIP (-exx): 5.185.540 by
7ZA (7Zip format, -mx=9): 3.046.852 by
CCMX (after PKZIP -e0 to create the archive): 2.851.344 by

Answer 4

I use WinRAR mostly because if its ability to archive a large file by splitting it up into many smaller files (which is a great thing for file hosting sites which have a size cap). Does 7z have a similar feature?

Edit by [Justin Standard]:

I searched around a bit, and I don't think 7zip has that feature, though I could be was wrong. I also searched on WinRAR and couldn't find decent documentation. Could you point me to where this features is documented?

Here is the documentation:
http://www.win-rar.com/index.php?id=24&kb_article_id=49

Edit by [Justin Standard]:

Some more searching reveals that 7zip does support multivolume archiving using the -v switch on the command line.

Usage syntax:

-v{Size}[b | k | m | g]

See the 7 zip help files for more detailed documentation.

Answer 5

I use 7-Zip, but if I didn't have to work with .gz and .bzip files I would just stick with the built-in Windows ZIP file handling.

Answer 6

I would suggest IZarc. It is faster than 7-Zip and handles large files better than 7-Zip.

Answer 7

It depends on what you want. WinRAR has become a pseudostandard in terms of prevalence, but is not open-source (but you can decompress it freely). 7-Zip is its closes competitor, but it has to be installed -- it's not widely known. GZip and BZip2 are well known standards, but you'll need to tar the files beforehand, and gz, bz2, and tar aren't well known on windows. Anything compatible with DEFLATE should probably work. There are other exotic programs with exotic compression schemes with varying rankings based on speed or space.

7-Zip is your best bet, and it's free.

Answer 8

AlZip has a nice interface and uses the old .zip format which is used built into windows. It uses good windows for the interface and has a good set of context menus built-in but customizable.

I must admit that it has one 'easter egg' that annoyed me: When you install it, it adds a little egg icon on your right-click menu that gives you bird named new folders. First time I noticed it I thought I had been hacked. : )

To turn it off from inside AlZip go to Tools>Preferences>Context Menu and uncheck the 'Power Extras' option "Create new folder".

Answer 9

I'd say that the one you're using - PowerArchiver - is already the best one :-) Even though I agree that it's become a bit busier in recent versions, the user interface is just so much better than any of the free ones I've tried. 7-Zip's GUI just makes me cringe. AlZip looks alright, but the faux ad banner in the screenshot kills it for me.

Answer 10

If you want maximum compression (at the cost of rather high resource usage, that is) then KGB Archiver is clearly the winner (and the compression ratio should be a criterion with this question). However, as for daily use, old habits (WinRAR) die hard. :)

Answer 11

You could have a look at Bitser.

Extracts archives:

ZIP, 7Z, RAR, ISO, MSI, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, LZH, LZMA, NSIS, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR, and Z.

Features

• Creates archives ZIP, 7Z, EXE (supports self extracting and split archives).

• Creates compressed backups of your data using checkboxes in Windows Explorer to select multiple files and folders.

• AES-256 bit encryption for secure backup of confidential data.
• Drag and drop support for adding and updating archives from built in file explorer.
• Context Menu (right click shortcut menu) access to archives from windows explorer
• Create or extract multiple zip files simultaneously from windows explorer.
• Convert archives between formats (full or partial conversion from any format to zip,7-zip or exe).
• Reports showing history of archived files, parameters used and comparisons of compression ratios, speeds, and sizes.
• Explorer style views of archives with source and destination folders accessible from a single window.
• MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256 checksum calculator for windows file verification.
• Password Manager to store multiple passwords in a single AES encrypted file.
• Interface can be translated into any language.
• Windows MSI installer.

The MSI install option was particularly attractive to me, because I look after a large network.

Answer 12

I have used WinRAR for years, but PeaZip looks promising and is free.

To me compatibility with other compression archives is the most important, and PeaZip is compatible with quite a few including 7-Zip.

Answer 13

I've been using DotNetZip's Windows Forms tool (I'm sort of biased). The tool comes with the DotNetZip library and creates and reads regular ZIP, ZIP64, AES, Unicode, SFX, etc. file.

It is fast and free.