Archiving Tools


7-Zip

7-zip.org

Price: Open-Source
License: GNU LPGL
License URL: 7-zip.org
Platform: Windows Linux
Last Modified: October 10, 2020

Hands-down the best tool for high-compression.

The main features of 7-Zip:

  • High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
  • Supported formats:
    • Packing/unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
    • Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
  • For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10% better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
  • Self-extracting capability for 7z format
  • Integration with Windows Shell
  • Powerful File Manager
  • Powerful command line version
  • Plugin for FAR Manager
  • Localizations for 63 languages

Comparison image regarding speed and compression ratio: imgur.com

E.g. the fastes compression of 7zip is faster than WinRar, but with a bit less compression.



WinRAR

rarlab.com

Price: Shareware
Platform: Windows Mac Linux Android
Last Modified: June 16, 2012

“WinRAR is a 32-bit Windows version of RAR Archiver, an archiver and archive manager. RAR files can usually compress content by 8 percent to 15 percent more than ZIP files can. WinRAR’s main features include strong general and multimedia compression, the ability to process non-RAR archive formats, ZIP compression and decompression, support for long filenames, programmable self-extracting archives (SFX), repair of damaged archives, authenticity verification, embedded file comments, and encryption. Unicode is supported in archive filenames, allowing non-English filenames to be handled painlessly. You can manipulate the parameters of many archives at once and view a volume sequence as a single archive. WinRAR can convert other archive formats to RAR and search for specified text and files in archives.
“The latest update adds a multithreaded version of the RAR compression algorithm, as well as a folder tree panel for navigating disk and archive folders.”


Portable ExtractNow

softpedia.com

Price: Free
Platform: Windows
Portable ExtractNow is a lightweight application that will help you easily extract any archives in no time. Why wear out your clicking finger extracting files one by one when you can extract at once? Portable ExtractNow does a fine job of bundling compressed files and extracting their contents in one fell swoop.
Portable ExtractNow has a clean, well-designed and easy-to-use interface. To extract files, simply drag and drop them into the main program window, or right-click the files while in Windows Explorer. Simple but not simplistic, this is a powerful and reliable program that will be of use to anyone who manages many compressed files.
The program supports ZIP, RAR, ACE, JAR, ISO, IMG, IMA, IMZ, BIN, MP3 (MP3>WAV), LHA, LHZ and SIT formats.
Here are some key features:
  • Integrates with Windows Explorer via special context menu items
  • System tray icon on Minimize and Always on top features
  • Extract files into current directory, named folder, or favorite folder of choice
  • Windows explorer file associations for all supported archive types
  • Recursively search through folders for archives (Just drag and drop them)