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.)
7-ZIP |
WOW! - full-featured, powerful, innovative | ||||
7-Zip is finally starting to get the fame it deserves. This freeware ZIP program is the only one in it's pack to really push the bar on technology. Although 7-Zip is best known for its support of high-compression non-ZIP technology (7Z), it also does a better job than WinZIP or PKZip on regular ZIP compression! Check out their compression comparison chart on their home page: 7-zip.org. I still found their browsing interface a bit of a kludge but they have provided an "Add to Archive" command on the context menu which makes it pretty simple to ZIP up any folder. Also, not all ZIP tools support creating of SFX (self-extracting) files but this one does. 7-Zip will automatically use its superior 7Z compression in the SFX files -- resulting in a compact package that literally slaughters the competition (WinZIP SFX Maker ~ $60). In this case, the free app is far superior to the commercial app. Well done 7-Zip! If you want technical support, you will have to register at US $20 but otherwise the program is unrestricted and contains no intrusive advertising. 7-ZIP can also create TAR files just in case you ever need to kill a mastodon.
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Free for Personal
Use
ZIPGenius |
Too full-featured, powerful but confused | ||||
ZIPGenius is a perfect example of a program that mis-diagnosis the problem. The problem is not that WinZIP is too expensive, it's too cluttered with unnecessary functionality! But if you love the clutter, you'll love ZIPGenius even more. I have never sees a program demostrated such a capability for "feature creep". ZIPGenius' ZIP features are really solid with great security features, 7-ZIP format support, built-in SFX support, ZIP-64 support etc. Also included are image viewing features, twain (scanner) management, a slide-show builder, support for OpenOffice documents, multi-language, CD-R writing, FTP uploading, and pretty much everything else but a kitchen sink (which they promise to include the next update!).
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IZArc |
Powerful, simple, decent interface | ||||
IZArc support a ton of compression formats. Just look at this impressive list of acronyms: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BZ2, BZA, CAB, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MBF, MIM, PAK, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO. IZArc also has good AES encryption for those who need it and best of all, it has a pretty darned good interface -- not to cluttered but rather straightforward! I'm pretty impressed. (I was NOT impressed with their website's interface however. How does that work?)
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