7-Zip: Best-Ever PC Archive Program?

[Five]

http://www.7-zip.org/

they're even claiming tehir .7z format is even better than .rar, plus they support .rar, .zip, .tar, etc., etc.

does anybody know of any better free software archiver for PC? what are the advantages to winzip, winrar, et al?

[DoIFeelLucky]

I switched to 7-zip last year, uninstalled WinRAR, and never had to look back. It's free and it supports pretty much every format. I recommend it pretty highly.

[AAR.oner]

me too..7zip is really all ya need...

for other good recommendations re: zip programs [as well as any other freeware] check this site...IMO, this is the spot for finding freeware
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm

[Cowboy Bob]

I still find .tar.gz (Tarred and GZipped) to be the best universal format.

If you look at Sourceforge or similar places the files are always smaller than standard Zip - not as small as 7-Zip though. It's also guaranteed to work on just about every machine known to man without extra software (OK, on Billyware you need to use a 3rd party program - but that's par for the course).

7-Zip is good, but it's not a universal format - I'm talking BSD, AIX, Solaris etc etc here.

Bob

[Five]

so is .tar.gz smaller than plain ol' .zip?

thanks for the responses looks like I can count on 7-Zip!

[Cowboy Bob]

so is .tar.gz smaller than plain ol' .zip?

In most cases yes. Depends on if the contents are already compressed (such as an archive of MP3s), but you knew that already.

Bob

[Ted]

what are the advantages to winzip, winrar, et al?The differ formats have algorithms that are better suited for different types of data. I wish I could remember more details. I've seen data files packed into .mp3 format because it can compress even more than zip, rar, or any of the others. You can't listen to it, of course. UHA is another very good compression algorithm.

Here are a couple comparison's:

http://www.geocities.com/eri32/binaries22.html

http://www.cmetge.dixinet.com/compression.asp

[wharfrat73]

I do like the recovery feature of Winrar. It doesn't look like 7-Zip has that... yet.