Free File: 7-Zip

Mar 27

AceFreebies, Tech Articles compression, zip View Comments

7Zip is an open-source compression/decompression utility that supports most of the popular compression formats. In addition, it also introduces its own high-performing format called LZMA. According to the 7Zip, LZMA supports:

a high compression ratio
compression speed of 1MB/s and higher (based on a 2GHz CPU)
decompression speed of 10 to 20 MB/s (ditto)
low system requirements
multi-threading and hyper-threading

Not only does it support regular ZIP, its compression ratio for ZIP is 2 to 10% higher than the its commercial counterpart, WinZip. In true open-source fashion, 7Zip is available in more than 60 languages and can be used on older computers without too much trouble. Furthermore, it comes with a custom file manager that allows advanced functionality like:

splitting files
combining files
calculating checksums of files

If you’re not (or can’t be) tied to a single computer and you prefer to carry your applications around on a USB-stick, there’s a portable version available at PortableApps.com, too. Sure, it doesn’t support every single possible format like WinRAR does, but it does a heck of a good job. And hey, it’s free!