There is quite an assortment of archiving utilities to help you archive a number of pictures, documents, etc. into a single file, suitable for emailing or storing long term on a backup drive.
This relates somewhat to an article about replacing paid applications with freeware alternatives I wrote a long time back:
On a related and timely note, I have been tasked with uninstalling un-licensed WinZIP from our corporate workstations and replacing it with IZArc.
Like my company, many organizations have installed WinZIP on their corporate images because up until version 10, WinZIP never stopped working after the initial 45-day trial period was up. Granted, an annoying nag-screen would appear, but otherwise, you could easily use WinZIP FAR beyond the eval period with full functionality, even though you were blatantly opposing the license agreement. Many still to this day are using it, believing it is freeware (it never was).
Here’s a quick summary of some of the most popular archiving tools out there (note that this does not include utilities that are programs that include archiving as a secondary function like Total Commander).
I myself prefer IZArc…what’s your favorite?
IZArc
Version: 3.81 (4.0 now in beta)
Opens: (47 file types) 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO
Archives to: (11 file types) .7z, .bh, .bza, .tar.bz2, .cab, .jar, .lha, .tar, .tar.gz, .zip, .yz1
Supports encryption? Yes (AES 128, 192, 256, ZIP 2.0)
Command-Line version: Yes
Portable? Yes
Other notes: Skinnable interface, free for corporate use.
JZip
Opens: (15 file types) .zip, .tgz, .rar, .tar, .7z, .bz2, .iso, .cab, .arj, .tpz, .gz, .z, .gzip, .taz, .tbz
Archives to: (5 file types) .zip, .7z, .gZip, .bZip2, .tar
Portable? No
Other Notes: free for corporate use (without add-ons), MSI version coming soon.
PeaZIP
Opens: (32 file types – 85+ if using plugins) ACE, ARJ, CAB, CHM, COMPOUND (MSI, DOC, XLS, PPT), CPIO, ISO, Java (JAR, EAR, WAR), Linux (DEB, PET/PUP, RPM, SLP), LHA/LZH, LZMA, Mac (DMG/HFS), NSIS, Open Office files, PAK/PK3/PK4, RAR, SMZIP, U3P, UDF, WIM, XAR, XPI, Z/TZ
Archives to: (10 file types) 7Z, ARC, BZ2, GZ, PAQ/LPAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, TAR, UPX, ZIP
Portable? No
Other Notes: Free for corporate use, interface uses drop downs a bit more than the other offerings. Not as ‘WinZIP’-like in this regard.
7Zip
Opens: (18 file formats) ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z
Archives to: (5 file types) 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
Supports encryption? Yes (AES 256)
Command-Line version: Yes
Portable? Yes
8 comments:
Lately I am only using 7-zip portable. It's bashed a lot for interface but I've discovered that it fits my taste pretty well - simple and fast.
Only remaining feature I must figure out (read it requires extra plugin or something) is how to make selfextract+run archives.
i recently was assigned the task of removing unlicensed (or in some cases illegitimately licensed) winzip from hundreds of computers at my company, versions 7 through 10. winzip doesn't uninstall very cleanly, so i wrote a detailed batch file (converted to silent executable) to do it. let me know if you'd like to see the code.
now people use either XP's built-in zip functionality, or if they request something i'll provide 7-Zip. it's stable, tried and true - kind of an industry standard. IZarc is OK too but it feels more like a software i would use at home, not install for a corporate end-user.
What about ZipGenius?
http://www.zipgenius.com/
I have used this one for many years. It pretty much handles everything.
www.zipgenius.com does not load. So no luck there.
I used to use IZArc for almost a year on two computers, but often would suffer wierd slowdown of things like opening explorer or right clicking files. I thought this was due to another software.
But, after an unrelated decision to replace IZArc with jZip, I found that the problems stopped.
I think that it has to do with some poor code in IZArc's shell integration when right clicking all files.
I did grow very fond of IZarc's UI.
all those programs you listed are based on 7-zip
so skip the middleman just use 7-zip plus then you always have the newest version
check the 7zip 9.0x series for new lzma2 compression!
How are they all based on 7Zip? I'm not sure I follow. They all support the 7Zip format, but it is open-sourced, so I'm not surprised about that.
To me, the ability to open more extensions, to encrypt (a few different ways) and user interface reigns supreme.
One thing about 7-zip that I noticed, but maybe I didn't try hard enough, is that if you use 7z format 7-zip compresses much better then IZArc. So I use both. IZarc for the rest and 7-zip for 7z compressing.
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