Free ZIP Programs - OK, OK, I know, WinZIP, PKZip and StuffIt are powerful ZIP tools with tons of wonderfully superfluous features. But come on! How many compression formats do we really need? Also, they're all pretty expensive at $30. For your occasional compression and manual data backup needs, the software below should be perfectly adequate -- and totally free is good too!
BTW, if you are using ZIP programs to backup up your data, you might want to look in our free Backup Software roundup. Those programs are designed to work invisibly backing up your data so that you never have to remember to do it manually. If your data has already been corrupted and the cause it simply deleted files or corrupt file, you might want to check out our roundup of free Data Recovery Software. This could save you a bundle over the commercial services by companies like "DiskDoctors" and "InterData". (Who are still useful for serious hard disk failure resulting from physical damage.)
CAM UnZIP |
medium powered, full-featured, a little kludgy | ||||
Cam UnZip was fairly easy to use, the interface is not as professional as WinZIP but pretty full featured - not my favorite freeware ZIP program but adequate for most ZIP-creation needs. Although I find this type of ZIP program a little bit cluttered, CAM UnZIP seems pretty solid. No Spyware, no adware it's totally free (but donations are invited.) Strangely, I had the hardest time finding a link on their website to actually download the program. It's there on the left panel of their home-page, just keep searching (or click the link download link here. ;)
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Free for Personal
Use
BigSpeed Zipper |
very interesting, fairly powerful, off-the-wall features | ||||
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BigSpeed Zipper is one of those ZIP programs hard to easily quantify. Sure it's got the basic features and it's a little weak on some features I think are important... but then it has so many other features that I've never even thought of! I'm still trying to figure out the usefulness of some of them. For example, you can view the contents of a ZIP file online BEFORE downloading. Now that's kind of cool! As far as interface goes, it's pretty non-standard but then sometimes a non-standard interface is the result of really cool features that would not fit into a normal interface. (Although usually, it's just because of bad design.) You go ahead and make up your own mind, its totally free.
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Optimal Archive |
full-featured, sold features, intrusive advertising | ||||
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When I first read the specs on Optimal Archive, I was pretty excited. It reminded me of an old favorite of my "ZIPMagic" - which made ZIP files appear as if folders. Well, Optimal Archive has a lot of the same capabilities. It's a very powerful piece of software despite support for non-ZIP formats such as TAR ARJ and RAR. ;) On the other hand, I'm not sure I would classify it as freeware. It's not that it installs noxious adware or spyware but rather it is itself an advertisement. Every time you use it you have to click through an advertising screen which gets old really fast.
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