7-Zip 18.01

7-Zip by Russian developer Igor Pavlov is a free and open source file compression and archive tool. Its name indicates that it supports the following 7 file formats for both packing and unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP, and WIM. Unpacking only support is provided for the following formats: 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.

7-Zip was the first program to feature the LZMA compression algorithm in its native .7z format invented by Igor Pavlov. The compression ratio achieved by LZMA is much better than traditional formats such as zip and rar (around 30-70% better than zip). Even when using the zip format 7-Zip can achieve higher compression ratios than other programs such as WinZip (around 2-10% better).

Windows integration

7-Zip has an integrated file manager that allows a seamless navigation within compressed archives, similar to Windows Explorer. This allows you to treat archives like regular folders, copying files into and out of compressed archives. Also, 7-Zip adds a Windows Explorer context menu entry to every file and folder, allowing you to easily unpack files by right-clicking on them or creating archives from selected files within a folder.

Among other features, 7-Zip can encrypt and decrypt archives using strong AES-256 encryption and create self-extracting archive files. It is localized into close to 80 different languages.

Summary

7-Zip is an excellent, easy to use file compression tool that achieves very high compression ratios. It integrates well with Windows, making it an indispensable tool for everyday file archiving needs.