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As soon as you start downloading files from the Internet, from websites, FTP archives, or newsgroups, you are confronted with archives, the most popular being ZIP files. They serve a double purpose: They combine multiple files in one, and they compress them.
Therefore it also makes sense to zip (or rar, or whatever) a single file: it reduces its size—sometimes. You should be aware that some files already are at minimum size and cannot be compressed any further, many text files, for example, or certain image formats. Furthermore, enclosing an archive in another archive will not reduce but increase its size.
All the programs listed in this section are for Windows, many, but not all will have versions for 16bit (3.1) and 32bit (95 and later) Windows. For DOS, the situation is completely different; best check out Simtel.net's MS-DOS archiver page. I have not tried any of them yet.
As for the Mac, the format nearly exclusively used is StuffIt, which is handled by the products of Aladdin Systems (now Smith Micro). Since StuffIt Expander can handle many other formats too, there is little demand for other programs. A few exist, I have listed them under the appropriate file formats. A long list of Macintosh archive utilities can be found on Pure-Mac.com.
Originally, I had these file formats listed approximately by popularity, starting with zip and rar and going down to the more arcane ones. Since I have now added in-page navigation, I thought it a better idea to organize them by alphabet. I have only listed those I actually encountered in real life, there are many more.
Formats used for the downloads on this website are ZIP, RAR, LZH, and ARJ. I tend to upload archives the way I find them. If I repack something for any reason, I tend to use ZIP for smaller and RAR for larger files.
While the other programs in this section pack or unpack archives, Archive Peek by Javier Thaine lets you do something different: Search through archives just like through the folders of your computer. There are versions for 16-bit and 32-bit Windows. Supported archive formats are ZIP, RAR, LZH, ARJ, ZOO, ARC, TAR, PAK, SQZ, HYP, WAD, GRP, CAB, and ACE.
The programs in this category can handle various archive formats. Minimum requirement for inclusion in this section was that the program can handle both zip and rar files. As it turned out, most of them support lzh, tar.gz, arj, and ace too. Exceptions are StuffIt Expander and 7-Zip (no ace). Since these are the only formats I've actually ever seen used, having one of them should satisfy all your archive needs.
This was the first program to support the new 7z format. Meanwhile PowerArchiver and WinRar do, too. Here the complete list of supported formats:
I had never heard about the last three formats. On 2004-10-21, I received an email from Burton M. Strauss III explaining them:
- RPM = RedHat Package Manager (Linux binary/install format)
- DEB = Debian package (another Linux binary/install format)
- CPIO is the output from the *nix cpio program—like tar it's a multi device archive. cpio used to be used for tape drives and the ilk.
Furthermore, 7-Zip creates smaller zip files than any other program, and it is free under the GNU LGPL. 7-Zip does not and most likely never will support ACE, since the licensing policies for this format do not go well with the LGPL.
As the name suggests, ExtractNow is read-only. It's main purpose is to allow the user to extract multiple archives easily. Note that it supports SIT (with an additional download)!
- Supports ZIP, RAR, ISO, BIN, IMG, IMA, IMZ, 7Z, ACE, JAR, GZ, LZH, LHA, SIT archive formats
- Drag and drop files or folders from Windows Explorer to extract them
- Simple user interface and sleek design in a small package
- Recursively search through folders for archives (Just drag and drop them)
- Delete files or close program after extraction options
- Windows explorer file associations for all supported archive types
- Extract files into current directory, named folder, or favorite folder of choice
- System tray icon on Minimize and Always on top features
- Integrates with Windows Explorer via special context menu items
Originally it was freeware. 3.0 was free only for personal use, and you had to click away an opening screen every time you started it. Commercial users needed a license. With 4.0, you need a license even for personal use, but unlike the commercial license it is good for all future versions. Price is $17.95, rapidly decreasing with the number of licenses. Support for some of the more exotic formats has been dropped, but the feature list is still impressive:
- Read and write support for ZIP, 7-ZIP, CAB, LHA (LZH), TAR, GZIP, BZIP2, BH, XXE, UUE, and MIME (Base 64).
- Read and extract support for: RAR, ARJ, ARC, ACE, ZOO.
- Support for unlimited file size and unlimited number of files in ZIP archives.
- Advanced File security with 256-Bit AES encryption.
- Support for creating self-extracting archives of the following formats: ACE, ARJ, BH, JAR, LHA/LZH, RAR, ZIP, 7-ZIP.
- Multi-disk spanning and Splitting for Zip archives.
- Windows shell integration.
- Checkout and Install features.
- Powerful backup feature.
- Repair corrupted ZIP files.
Originally UltimateZip was GUI only, no command line options. Meanwhile a command line version for registered users has been added.
Primarily for RAR archives, it can also handle ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, 7Z, and ISO. It can create RAR and ZIP archives. There are command line versions for DOS/OS/2 and Linux. It is updated quite often, many consider it the best archiver of all. Available in many languages. Shareware, $29.95.
Maybe this is really the "Ultimate Archiving Utility" its producers claim it to be. It supports and impressive list of archive formats, including some formats popular for disk (CD) images:
This disk image support really sets it apart. Many archive utilities can read ISO, but the other formats can usually be accessed only by mounting them in a virtual drive. Other features include:
- Internal viewer that supports TXT, RTF, GIF, PNG, BMP, ICO, TIFF, GFI, SGI, EMF, WMF, PPM, Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk, Truevision, ZSoft Paintbrush, Kodak Photo-CD, JASC PaintShop Pro, and Dr. Halo file formats
- Can be skinned!
- Creates ZIP and CAB self-extracting archives
- Completely integrates with Windows
- Repairs corrupted ZIP archives
- Can extract multiple archives at the same time
- Features automated backups
- Can create multiple archives at once with Batch ZIP
Shareware, $19.95 (decreasing with the number of licenses). Windows32 only, available in several languages, including Lithuanian and Czech.
On the Mac, it is the standard utility, included, I think, with the operating system since 7.0 or something. On Windows, it is about the only thing that can open the Mac StuffIt archives. Also available for Linux and Solaris, it can open several other formats as well:
SIT, SITX, ZIP, TAR, SEA, HQX, GZ, TGZ, LZH, MIME, RAR, PF, UU, UUE, Z, BZIP, ARC, CAB, YENC
When I last used it (in 2006, I think), it was a rather inflexible utility, you could not browse the archive or extract single files. Freeware, but you have to register to download it. For more features (like archive browsing) you can upgrade to StuffIt Standard ($24.99) or Deluxe ($49.99).
Formerly Windows Commander, this is a file manager for Windows (all versions), and it can handle ZIP, ARJ, LZH, RAR, UC2, TAR, GZ, CAB, and ACE archives. It has a built-in FTP client. Shareware, $38.
Supports ACE, ZIP, ARJ, LHA, RAR, CAB, ARC, TAR, and GZip. Shareware, $29.
Shareware, $20. The website is gone, but you can still find it on many download sites. Just google for it.
Batch Zip Toolkit is the award winning, all in one file compression package that allows you to compress and decompress files individually—in batch.
Although Batch Zip Toolkit is based around the popular Zip format, in reality it actually supports 13 different compression formats including Lha, Gzip, BlakHole, Cab, Tar, Lzh, Arj, Ace and Rar. Batch Zip Toolkit can also compress your files individually through directories (recursively) saving you time and effort.
This is a new format featuring higher compression than any other format before. It supports ridiculously huge files (many million times the size of a contemporary harddisk), decompression is fast but relatively CPU-intensive. 7z is not an option for old computers. But due to its qualities and its LGPL/CPL licensing it is expected to replace especially the proprietary rar, and to a certain degree zip, too.
PowerArchiver was the first Multi-Talent
to support 7z.
Meanwhile WinRar does, too. StuffIt 9.0 still does not.
This proprietary format has a modest popularity on Usenet. It has a very high compression, but is hampered by its restrictive license policies. The makers of WinAce provide an UnACE.DLL for free, which is fine for Windows programs. Everything else is costly, yet still Windows-centric. Consequently, there is not a single program that can open ACE files on a Mac.
The Windows-based programs in the multi-talent section can handle the format, the Mac-centric Stuffit Expander and the cross-platform open-source 7-Zip can not. Never use this format for anything that might be interesting for someone not using Windows. In fact, I do not recommend you use this format at all. Not a single download on this website uses ACE.
This is the oldest archive format. Not used very much any more, but still supported by most archivers. A couple of PC games from the early 90s that you can download here (Entertainer, Mindgame, Sitris) are archived in this format.
Our archivers offer more than just data compression. They also offer powerful file management functions including version management as well as reliability and data damage protection for advanced PC users.
This was invented by Microsoft for their Windows installations, but is an open standard and can be handled by most archivers. It has very good compression. There is another type of cab archive used by InstallShield, which can only be handled by specialized command line tools, if at all. You can find them at CD Media World. A GUI for these programs has been provided with WinPack. Some information about this file format can be found at RoXrOb's InstalSHIELD 5 Script Zen Cracking, but it's from 1999 and only interesting for programmers, of course. All in all it's pretty difficult to open these archives, simply because the InstallShield people don't want you to.
This format was created, along with a freeware utility, by Haruyasu Yoshizaki in 1988. Like ZIP, it is free. There are three main uses for it:
Due to its freeware nature Support for this format is quite good. Every single program I have listed in the multi-talent section above can decompress, and many can create LZH archives.
LZH, by the way, is short for Lempel-Ziv-Huffman. The compression used here is similar to the LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) compression used in GIF files. But I have never heard of any patent issues in connection with LZH archives.
This is a proprietary format. Its compression is slightly better than zip, but it is the ease with which it chops up large archives into small bits that makes it so popular on Usenet. If you want to do some serious downloading, you need a program that can handle rar files. There are quite a lot of them. Since they all can handle zip too, they are listed under Multitalents. I don't think that there is a 16-bit Windows utility that can handle this format, but some early versions of WinRAR might run under Win32s.
These are the Mac's StuffIt archives (SEA is short for Self Extracting Archive). These are completely proprietary formats, even for the decrompession routines a hefty fee has to be paid. Thus only StuffIt Expander handles them. There was another program, MindExpander from 1999, which you can still find for download here and there. It has the added feature that it can convert the content of the archives to binhex, very useful if you want to unstuff an archive under Windows and then use the files on a Mac. But since it is rather old, it cannot open many newer archives, so its usefulness is very limited.
At least that was the situation. Meanwhile Aladdin Systems have followed the way of ACE and have published a free DLL. If you download that, ExtractNow (see multi-talents) supports SIT, too.
Regardless which program you use, their behavior is very different from a typical Windows archiver. Instead of showing the contents of the archive, both will immediately expand it, in the default setting even without asking where. A single file will be put in the same directory as the archive, multiple files in a subdirectory. This kind of behavior is typical for programs of this kind on the Mac.
Never use this format for anything intended for someone not using a Mac. Most Windows users will not be able to open it, no Linux users will at all. Use zip instead. Other Mac users will have no problem with zip either, since it is supported by any version of StuffIt Expander I know.
This is the typical way of compressing things in the Unix world. The two functions are here separated: First, the files are combined in a tar archive, then compressed with gzip (older archives might have a tar.Z extension instead, that is the compression previously used). Most of the Multi-Talents should be able to handle this.
I found however that at least WinRar is not very good in opening single gzipped files (when there is no tar ball inside). For these, it is better to use the original utility found at the gzip home page in sources and executables for most operating systems.
The zip format is the most common on the Internet, probably because it is a completely open standard. Some utility that can extract zip files is an essential, I have always wondered why Windows does not include this function by default. (Rather, did not; it does, since XP, though in a rather annoying way.)