7-Zip

[Vation]

Best freeware packer for windows.

History of changes for 9.xx (beta) releases (that work very well)

9.10 beta 2009-12-22
-------------------------
- The BUG in 7-Zip 9.09 beta was fixed:
7-Zip created incorrect zip archive, if ZipCrypto encryption was used.


9.09 beta 2009-12-12
-------------------------
- 7-Zip now can unpack Apple Partition Map (APM) disk images.
- Speed optimizations in AES code for Intel's 32nm CPUs.
- Speed optimizations in CRC calculation code for Intel's Atom CPUs.
- Some bugs were fixed.


9.07 beta 2009-08-27
-------------------------
- It's possible to specify Diff program in options (7-Zip File Manager).
- Some bugs were fixed.


9.06 beta 2009-08-17
-------------------------
- 7-Zip now can unpack MSLZ archives.
- Partial parsing for EXE resources, SWF and FLV.
- Some bugs were fixed.


9.04 beta 2009-05-30
-------------------------
- 7-Zip now can update solid .7z archives.
- 7-Zip now supports LZMA2 compression method.
- 7-Zip now supports XZ archives.
- 7-Zip now can unpack NTFS, FAT, VHD and MBR archives.
- 7-Zip now can unpack GZip, BZip2, LZMA, XZ and TAR archives from stdin.
- 7-Zip now can open/copy/compress disk images (like \\.\c:) from \\.\ folder.
- 7-Zip File Manager now doesn't use temp files to open nested archives
stored without compression.
- New -scrc switch to calculate total CRC-32 during extracting / testing.
- New -scc{WIN|DOS|UTF-8} switch to specify charset for console input/output (default = DOS).
- Some bugs were fixed.

7-Zip 9.10 for 32-bit Windows

7-Zip 9.10 for 64-bit Windows

7-Zip 9.10 for Windows Mobile


Latest Beta of the beta Igor Pavlov should call it Alpha.

7-Zip 9.10 beta 3 update was released:

http://dl.7-zip.org/7z910b3.7z

To install the update you must replace 7z.dll file in Program Files/7-Zip/

What's new:
The support for installers was improved.
7-Zip now tries to open sub-file as archive in some cases:
1) Largest sub-file from EXE files (PE parser).
2) CAB sub-file from MSI archives.
3) data.* sub-file from DEB archives.

[atlantis]

Best freeware packer for windows.

are you sure ? I think winrar it's the best for personal users and in winrar I have better compression (photo,ico,nn) then 7-zip

[Vation]

Winrar license is shareware, 7-zip license is freeware.(All and all both are free, winrar after trial has some nasty popup, and has some license limitation for corporat use if not bought.)

Winrar seems to be better for handling large files like unpacking multi file archives with size around 4GB and more.

Compression ratio in .7z is better than in .rar format.

[atlantis]

I see 7-zip mostly on rip games but they are professional and I don't know how they compress that much and for winrar license .. you always can find a serial or crack for few seconds ..

[Haggar]

For compressing games, try FreeArc, it's great, can compress more than 7-zip with the right settings.

[SealLion]

I used to use 7 zip and I found it not too bad actually.

What I can say about Winrar is that there doesn't seem to be a default place for placing all your downloads into.

With winrar, I have to consistantly route the download to the specifc and same location. I know that there's a drop down menu, but that's not really what I'm looking for. Most especially when I use a Hdd cleaning tool like Cyberscrub to wipe the deleted files from my HDD. Inadvertantly, it also wipes away the menu from the drop down menu.

The thing that I didn't like about 7 zip is the fact that I had to consistantly re-set the files that 7zip could unzip. I also found that trying to compress with 7zip took quite a bit longer than it does with Winrar.

YOu know, there's positives and negatives about every software.

I never did hear of Freearc before though.

---------- Post added at 19:23 ---------- Previous post was at 19:21 ----------

I did go to it's website and have a look around there. But I would like to ask you a question Haggar. When you uncompress something with freearc, how would you compare it to the other 2 listed above??

---------- Post added at 19:24 ---------- Previous post was at 19:23 ----------

What about ease of use??
Is it user friendly??

---------- Post added at 19:25 ---------- Previous post was at 19:24 ----------

I also see that there's Linux versions of it too. That's great, actually.

[Haggar]

But I would like to ask you a question Haggar. When you uncompress something with freearc, how would you compare it to the other 2 listed above??

Hi, i've never done a benchmark to compare uncompression speeds with the other two, but i find it fast, i use this program to make self extract files. Here you can find objective benchmarks FreeArc benchmarks

What about ease of use??
Is it user friendly??

I find it user friendly, specially with the explorer integration, gui is simple, works well with default settings, most of the time you won't need to change any setting, maybe the compression algorithm if you want the best possible compresion or if you want to create a self extract file. You can use custom compression algorithms too.

I like it so far, it's a good alternative.

[anon]

I also found that trying to compress with 7zip took quite a bit longer than it does with Winrar.

That's because 7-Zip uses a different compression algorithm which compresses better but needs more CPU power. If you feel like reading:
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZMA]Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain algorithm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

And this is what WinRAR uses:
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ77_and_LZ78]LZ77 and LZ78 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_by_partial_matching]Prediction by Partial Matching - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

[atlantis]

I know one program ...arc but I don't remmeber freearc or else but it's best tool for compression but it's very slooowwww especially with the highest settings

[anon]

KGB Archiver?

[SBfreak]

Anyone ever tried IZArc - The Best Freeware ZIP Utility - RAR 7-ZIP UNZIP UNRAR ENCRYPT ISO BIN ??
It can extract nearly everything.

[cheatos]

well the best one is FreeArc, it beats 7z's compression rate.
i moved from winrar to it, but its slow and uncommon, had to return to winrar again..

[atlantis]

Izarc just suck ... compression quality suxxx

[Blocker]

Winrar license is shareware, 7-zip license is freeware.(All and all both are free, winrar after trial has some nasty popup, and has some license limitation for corporat use if not bought.)

Just look for a keygen

I just prefer Winrar, in the past I used Winzip

[saebrtooth]

For all your data compression needs
Maximum Compression (lossless data compression software)

Reviews, comparisons by time, efficiency and size

I use winrar for most of my stuff considering efficiency. But according to the tables seems like PAQ and WinRK are a close to the top when considering max compression.

I started out using zip, arj, zip, rar, winrar