Best free file compression software in your opinion?

jpaul · 2 Apr 2019 at 15:54

was about to try xz too, following reading this
https://www.rootusers.com/gzip-vs-bzip2-vs-xz-performance-comparison/

ironically the xz zip download
https://tukaani.org/xz/
has a pgp signature which I cannot check with 7zip ... thought I had another tool to do that but can't now find it.

Admetos · 2 Apr 2019 at 18:50

AthlonXP1800 said:
I now stick with WinRAR, been used WinRAR for amazing 25 years now.

+1 I have been using WinRAR since my university days since around 1995.

The secret to getting most compression from WinRAR is to create solid archives.

The Old School Gamer · 3 Apr 2019 at 14:34

+1 WinRAR

Been using it since forever, it does the job so I don't see any reason to change.

OspreyO · 3 Apr 2019 at 14:44

7Zip #1
WinRar when I have to.

Glanza · 3 Apr 2019 at 14:48

7Zip +1 but make sure you don't select an option your PC can't handle when compressing.

MartinPrince · 6 Apr 2019 at 13:19

I

JasonM said:
+1 I have been using WinRAR since my university days since around 1995.

The secret to getting most compression from WinRAR is to create solid archives.

Been using it for a similar time as well here. I did use 7Zip a few years ago for some reason I can't remember but back to Winrar.

Sin_Chase · 13 Apr 2019 at 20:38

Gave up in WinRar and started using 7Zip a while ago now.

It's lightweight, unintrusive and works as you would expect. What more do you you need from a file compressor?

Double07 · 15 Apr 2019 at 03:09

7z mostly just because i was used to winzip from years back.

Fluffybob · 15 Apr 2019 at 10:17

7-Zip for me

Rainmaker · 18 Apr 2019 at 11:32

The Old School Gamer said:
+1 WinRAR

Been using it since forever, it does the job so I don't see any reason to change.

Unfortunately, for almost 20 years of that forever WinRAR was vulnerable to a remote exploit that the devs never closed until very recently. One does wonder how/why, especially with WinRAR being essentially freeware/nagware. This on top of the WinRAR exploit used in espionage campaigns in 2014. I did use WinRAR for years, but I switched to 7ZIP years ago and I'll be sticking with it.

atomic7431 · 18 Apr 2019 at 13:26

7-zip here as well for years.

Energize · 18 Apr 2019 at 18:37

Rainmaker said:
Unfortunately, for almost 20 years of that forever WinRAR was vulnerable to a remote exploit that the devs never closed until very recently. One does wonder how/why, especially with WinRAR being essentially freeware/nagware. This on top of the WinRAR exploit used in espionage campaigns in 2014. I did use WinRAR for years, but I switched to 7ZIP years ago and I'll be sticking with it.

Yeah, there's really no reason to use winrar anymore when 7zip is available. Even government organisations use 7zip as standard these days.

jpaul · 18 Apr 2019 at 22:06

... 7zip itself was patched for the same/similar issue , per the last months 'winrar patch' thread .. so it's not whiter than white ...

but, practically, can't remember when I last compressed something ... just unzip on downloaded programs.

AthlonXP1800 · 19 Apr 2019 at 23:55

Armageus said:
Just your pc imo - no-one else has a problem, I've not had a problem in 10 years of using it, including for some long term archiving of business files.

No it not just my PC, I also tried to downloaded on my laptop and tried to extracted nvidia driver with 7-Zip and install nvidia driver on my laptop but it still threw up data error.

Oh of course some-one else has a problem with 7-Zip if you google 7-Zip data error and you will see lots of results.

Found the most recently result:

https://sourceforge.net/p/sevenzip/discussion/45798/thread/c3ef2ee231/?limit=25

AthlonXP1800 · 20 Apr 2019 at 00:18

jpaul said:
so your downloaded file may have had some checksum problems, that winrar ignored/worked-around and 7-zip baulked on. .. one swallow .....

edit - checking winrar doc

I dont think my downloaded files may had some checksum problems, I checked files properties archive tab to find what compression software it used to archived the files. Majority of files in my downloads folder had been packed by Zip, very few files used either Rar and 7-Zip, surprised to see Zip the most popular compression many website and companies used. Nvidia drivers used Solid SFX 7-Zip archive but it always said unknown version and Host OS.

It really very funny that previous 7-Zip version I downloaded would not able to manually extracted Nvidia driver which used SFX 7-Zip archive to compressed files few years ago.

PiKe · 20 Apr 2019 at 01:10

I heard that middle-out-compression is the most efficient

AthlonXP1800 · 20 Apr 2019 at 03:42

Sin_Chase said:
Gave up in WinRar and started using 7Zip a while ago now.

It's lightweight, unintrusive and works as you would expect. What more do you you need from a file compressor?

WinRAR is not bloated something like 100MB, actually it is lightweight, unintrusive and works as you would expect too.

I checked latest WinRAR 5.71 beta 2 folder size is 7.33MB, I downloaded and installed latest 7-Zip 19.00 to see the folder size, it is 4.96MB.

I had done some benchmarks:

Extracted latest 553MB Nvidia 425.31 driver which used 7-Zip solid SFX archive, WinRAR took 10 secs while 7-Zip took 13 secs to extracted 1.28GB files.
Compressed 1.28GB Nvidia 425.31 folder, WinRAR took 48 secs to created solid SFX 578MB rar file with 128MB directory used Best compression method while 7-Zip took 1 min, 41 secs to created solid SFX 547MB 7-Zip file with 128MB directory used Ultra compression method.

Extracted 3.71GB Justice_RTX_Demo file which used Zip for DOS archive, WinRAR took 25 secs while 7-Zip took 27 secs to extracted 4.10GB files.

Compressed 3.71GB Justice_RTX_Demo file which used Zip for DOS archive, WinRAR took 3 mins, 41 secs to created solid SFX 3.29GB rar file with 128MB directory used Best compression method while 7-Zip took 4 min, 17 secs to created solid SFX 3.20GB 7-Zip file with 128MB directory used Ultra compression method.

I am not sure why some people choose 7-Zip which is slower at decompression and took longer at compression than WinRAR.

WinRAR is superior in my opinion.

I now uninstalled latest 7-Zip 19.00.

jpaul · 20 Apr 2019 at 07:39

software algorithms are usually optmised for the 'average' hardware ram/sytem-resources so ymmv for 7zip performance versus winrar.

checksum remark (per earlier post) - winrar can write additional recovery records, making the output more resilient, this capability may have explained why your download, years back, uncompressed with winrar, but not 7zip

TheVoice · 20 Apr 2019 at 12:15

Right-click -> Send to -> Compressed (zipped) folder.

That said I'll use 7-Zip if I'm unzipping a large file as Windows takes forever.

Energize · 20 Apr 2019 at 14:42

AthlonXP1800 said:
WinRAR is not bloated something like 100MB, actually it is lightweight, unintrusive and works as you would expect too.

I checked latest WinRAR 5.71 beta 2 folder size is 7.33MB, I downloaded and installed latest 7-Zip 19.00 to see the folder size, it is 4.96MB.

I had done some benchmarks:

Extracted latest 553MB Nvidia 425.31 driver which used 7-Zip solid SFX archive, WinRAR took 10 secs while 7-Zip took 13 secs to extracted 1.28GB files.
Compressed 1.28GB Nvidia 425.31 folder, WinRAR took 48 secs to created solid SFX 578MB rar file with 128MB directory used Best compression method while 7-Zip took 1 min, 41 secs to created solid SFX 547MB 7-Zip file with 128MB directory used Ultra compression method.

Extracted 3.71GB Justice_RTX_Demo file which used Zip for DOS archive, WinRAR took 25 secs while 7-Zip took 27 secs to extracted 4.10GB files.

Compressed 3.71GB Justice_RTX_Demo file which used Zip for DOS archive, WinRAR took 3 mins, 41 secs to created solid SFX 3.29GB rar file with 128MB directory used Best compression method while 7-Zip took 4 min, 17 secs to created solid SFX 3.20GB 7-Zip file with 128MB directory used Ultra compression method.

I am not sure why some people choose 7-Zip which is slower at decompression and took longer at compression than WinRAR.

WinRAR is superior in my opinion.

I now uninstalled latest 7-Zip 19.00.

What you will actually find is that there is often very little difference in size between the normal and ultra compression level settings, if you compare the final archives size for size, then 7zip is faster.

Furthermore you were comparing decompression times which were negligible, a couple of seconds difference which can be explained by start up lag which can be caused by many different factors. When comparing files that take an hour to decompress, 2 seconds doesn't matter.