7ZIP

7-Zip is an open source file archiver. 7-Zip operates with the 7z archive format, but can read and write several other archive formats. The program can be used from a command line interface, graphical user interface, or with a window-based shell integration. 7-Zip began in 1999 and is actively developed by Igor Pavlov. The cross-platform version of the command line utility, p7zip, is also available. 7-Zip is open source software. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license. It was the winner of the SourceForge.net 2007 community choice awards for "Technical Design" and for "Best Project".

7-Zip supports:

The 256-bit AES cipher. Encryption can be enabled for both files and the 7z directory structure. When the directory structure is encrypted, users are required to supply a password to see the filenames contained within the archive. WinZip-developed zip file AES encryption standard is also available in 7-Zip to encrypt ZIP archives with AES 256-bit, but it does not offer filename encryption as in 7z archives. Volumes of dynamically variable sizes, allowing use for backups on removable media such as writable CDs and DVDs. Usability as a basic orthodox file manager when used in 2-panel mode. Multiple-core CPU threading settings can be configured. The ability to attempt to open EXE files as archives, allowing the decompression of data from inside many "Setup" or "Installer" or "Extract" type programs without having to launch them. The ability to unpack archives with corrupted filenames, renaming the files as required. The ability to create self-extracting single- (but not multi-) volume archives. Command-line interface.

The main features of 7-Zip

High compression ratio in 7z format with LZMA and LZMA2 compression Supported formats: o Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM o Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DEB, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, VHD, WIM, XAR and Z. For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats Self-extracting capability for 7z format Integration with Windows Shell We compared 7-Zip with some of the leading archivers. FILE SETS: Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 for Windows and Google Earth 3.0.0616 for Windows after full installation.

Mozilla Firefox Archiver 161 files 15,684,168 bytes

Google Earth 115 files 23,530,652 bytes

Compressed size Ratio Compressed size Ratio 7-Zip 4.23 (7z format) WinRAR 3.50 CABARC 5.1 WinZip 10.0 beta (maximum-PPMd) 7-Zip 4.23 (zip format) WinZip 10.0 beta (maximum-portable) 4621135 5021556 5131393 5277118 6222627 6448666 100% 109% 111% 114% 135% 140% 6109183 6824892 7434325 8200708 8909446 9153898 100% 112% 122% 134% 146% 150%

Compression ratio results are very dependent upon the data used for the tests. Usually, 7-Zip compresses to 7z format 30-70% better than to zip format. And 7-Zip compresses to zip format 2-10% better than most of other zip compatible programs.