7-Zip is an open source file archiver with the high compression ratio predominantly for the Microsoft Windows operating system.
It operates either as a command line program or with a graphical user interface. It also features integration with the Windows shell environment.
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 it compresses to zip format 2-10% better than most of other zip compatible programs.
7-Zip is free software, developed by Igor Pavlov and distributed under the GNU LGPL license. This file archiver works on all Windows operating systems, from Windows NT to 10 (32-bit and 64-bit).
The main features of 7-Zip:
- High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression and LZMA2 compression
- For ZIP and GZIP formats, the provided compression ratio 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
- Powerful File Manager
- Powerful command line version
- Plugin for FAR Manager
- Localizations for 87 languages
- Supported formats:
- Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM
- Unpacking only: AR, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DMG, EXT, FAT, GPT, HFS, IHEX, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, QCOW2, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, UEFI, VDI,
- VHD, VMDK, WIM, XAR and Z.
