Very few people know of the existence of 7-zip software, which is published as open source software at sourceforge.net.

Generally, users of Windows prefer the zipping module embedded with Windows XP or WinZip software and hardly, require any other compression software until required otherwise. The situations may include the different file-format, like ".rar" for which the user requires WinRar from rarlab.com.

Now, 7-zip is free software that let's you deal with many compressing algorithms including the most popular one's zip and rar. However, only un-rar'ing is possible that is rar files can be extracted but can't be created. Including this is a new file format .7z in 7-zip which is their new open compression standard.

Here are some facts from the 7-zip publishers that will clearly state about the sound-ness of the algorithm



Another fact or datasheet is more interesting



These facts clearly states that 7-zip provides compression standard which far more better than existing one's and moreover, is freeware.

The only area where the software lacks is its interface though it is comparable to WinZip but not as intelligent as the WinZip's interface. However, it integrates seamlessly with the Windows shell providing right-click options to create archive or extract from archive.

I hope this will change your mind towards Open source stuff and you would like to try this new standard which provides more compression.

This post has been edited by amitbhandari: Apr 17 2006, 05:39 AM

Yea, I am using 7-Zip File Manager myself and I encourage all my friends to do it rather than using WinZip and similar. Eventually, most of my friends liked it and I am happy that when I send a .7z or .tar file for them, they can extract it easily. The only thing I miss on it is LHA, LZX, XPK support for it, because I, personally, quite often need to use them.

For windows users, great tool. But I don't see the .7z format replacing the defacto standards of .zip or .tar.gz anytime soon. For starters, OSX & XP both have the ablity now to create .Zip's with the click of a mouse. .Zip can be unpacked by a number of applications on every platform.

I find often times if I'm sending a .Zip it's not because files need compression, it's because I need to send multiple files. .Zip is extremely convenient for that purpose. I deal with Lightwave, which a lot of European model makers in particular, tend to package things as a .Ace or .rar file instead of just using plain ole .zip. They may have their reasons, but it makes it damned annoying having to have a half dozen applications. (Although Stuff-it seems to handle most things for the Mac). Same with .Tar.gz, it's not a common extention nor particularly easy to deal with for Windows users. That's why I don't use it for most files unless they are designed specifically for an *iux enviroments.

For the most part I'm sticking with .zip because people know what it is and usually have a program to use it.

But as a standard, I think he meant about the .Zip format, because using 7zip you get much better compressing rates (He quoted it and the %) than using some other archiver, for example WinZip. Like, I personally need to deal a lot with LHA and LZX formats on my Amiga, XP can't unarchive them by default, even though the Win 98 and 2000 could, on the further versions they removed this feature. I agree, that zip can be unarchived without problems on any OS, at least on all of which I know.

I personally prefer WinRAR, I have tryed 7-zip but never took to it and it's use isn't very abundant on the web.

There's also much better compression to be had from Uharc but I don't see everyone rushing towards it..... oh well. Then again it's not exactly the fastest thing in thr world for larger files and it's not very well known as well being BETA or unfinished software.

Some of the front ends for it work nicely though.

This post has been edited by Chesso: Apr 18 2006, 03:14 PM