If you think WinZip is the only option you have to compress or uncompress files on your windows machine; let me give you the news, you have many other options. Even windows XP and Windows Vista come with a basic compression file archiving option, but we won’t talk about that today, instead I will introduce you to a better robust and efficient file archiver.
Zip-7 is Open Source software that let you compress files in ratios that are 2-20% better than WinZip or PKZIP. Zip-7 supports the following formats:
Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
Notable features:
“¢ Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
“¢ Self-extracting capability for 7z format
“¢ Integration with Windows Shell
“¢ Powerful File Manager
“¢ Powerful command line version
“¢ Plugin for FAR Manager
“¢ Localizations for 69 languages
7-Zip works in Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista
Go to http://www.7-zip.org/ to read more about zip-7. I told you this was only an introduction.
This is a better option than WinZip or WinRar. Though the options are pretty much the same (I believe), it doesn’t make sense to shell out money for a compression utility coz 7-Zip is open source.