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This post has been edited by Steven9088: Sep 6 2007, 07:48 PM

I have used 7-zip for a huge project I was working on. It is pretty reliable, although the procedure of folder searching and going back and forth a lot made it less user friendly than I liked. But I did like that it did what was needed. I really am not one for messing with tar after playing around in Linux... but if I were to mesh Linux and Windows together again, I would sure use it.

I guess I can say that, yes, I have used it, but thought I would have tons more to say about it!

7 zip is one of the best compression algorithms out there. It has even beaten the RAR format. It does take a lot of time to compress but that is a price one must pay for higher compression ratios. It is said to be hyper-threading friendly but I have found Win RAR to be faster when compressing the same set of files in the same format. Also, it lacks the Recovery record feature which exists in Win RAR.

7zip is nice primarily because it does everything that WinRAR does (for most people) and more, all for free. Also, you can package 7-zip with a Linux distribution, since it's GPL licensed...you can't do that with unrar.

I only have the command line version of 7-zip pretty much because i only use powerarchiver as my multi purpose program for handling archives. I find it a fast and useful utility for what i need it for though, i have a lot of small programs that reguarly need updating and the update utility needs the functionality of 7-zip to unzip specific archives.
It's snuggled away somewhere in my program files so i can still carry away using powerarchiver like i have nothing else installed.

For all purposes that i have used it though it's simple and fast.
-HellFire

I love the portable version of 7zip because it does not need to be installed on the Windows machine.
So, I have on my USB flashdisk, and I use it in order to unrar on computers which don't have winrar installed, or in order to zip on computer which don't have winzip installed.

For a long time I am using 7-zip as my main archiver, the only thing as I know it can't do is compress as .rar so I don't compress it in that format, the main thing I can decompress it though I used to use the console version with batch scripting, but nevertheless I really like the GUI version, it is simple and it can do everything I need.. For very big files or folders/directories having lots of data to compress with .7z takes a long time, another thing is that not everyone can decompress .7z so I usually like to use the normal .zip if I don't want a better ratio for something, I don't like waiting when the compression will be over.. In fact for files I don't use frequently I just .tar them and leave them somewhere in Storage on my HDD, due to a lot of small files takes more space then one normal big file.

I've only used it once or twice, only to find out it's just a tad better than winrar. The biggest downside is that most people can't open it, most people don't even know 7zip. Winrar is a lot better, more people know it and more people can use it, that's why I prefer it for sending or storing big files.
Zip is quick 'n dirty for sending a lot of smaller files, I use it more like a container that holds a lot of small files (sending 1 files through MSN or sending 100 files ... hmmmm )

I use 7zip more then any other zipping program. I also use the u3 flash disk portable one as well. Very nice

The only reason why I have 7-zip installed is because I use some software that is only distributed with 7zip. Otherwise I don't really use it. It's a good free program, but it's just not widespread enough.