Comments on: Is 7-Zip better than WinZip and WinRar?

By: 7-Zip VS WinZip V.12 - Best compression method

7-Zip VS WinZip V.12 - Best compression method — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:35:03 +0000

[...] few nights ago, I have blogged about 7-Zip VS WinZip VS WinRar. It was a controversial test because as one reader commented, I did not use the other compression [...]

By: Reshma

Reshma — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:55:07 +0000

You could also use Peazip, which is a better compression software in the way that it supports more formats and even the latest format – bzip2. It is an open source software as is 7zip. Gr8 work and keep writing!

By: suli

suli — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:21:57 +0000

7-zip can also uses LZMA with zip format. But you can’t open this type of zip file with winrar. I have not done a test with winzip, but i think winrar can’t open a zip file compressed with PPMd too. So it is no use to compress a file into zip format using some advanced methed, unless you love the “.zip” text in the filename^_^

I prefer to 7-zip. If you are not sure about which uncompressor the other one is using, you can compress the files with zip format. 7-zip provide two compressing opinions in context menu, one for 7z, one for zip, at the same time.

By: jambo

jambo — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:28:50 +0000

“It only works on Windows, sorry Mac and Linux users.”

If you had looked at the sourceforge project page ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip/ ) or at the creators homepage ( http://www.7-zip.org/ ) instead of some random website named alike, you would see that not only Linux and Mac are supported but also many other platforms are able to use 7-zip.

Also the random website you linked points to older version of 7-zip (hosted at sourceforge, but who knows when the page creator will change that link to some virus ladden file).
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By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:18:23 +0000

“sorry Mac and Linux users”
It does not matter for linux, file-roller has 7zip support for compressing and decompressing built in. I presume Mac’s file unzipper has support for it too.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:06:38 +0000

This is the worst test I have ever seen. No details were given as to what compression methods were used in each compression program.

FAIL.

By: pc tips online

pc tips online — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:59:44 +0000

Yes, you are right. I downloaded 7-zip and almost repeated all of your experiments using the default options in every application. The result shows that 7-zip is outperform other two tools.

Thank you again for this information, and by the way, I have tried .pdf files and the result is the same.

By: ericq

ericq — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:35:15 +0000

I Use IZarc. It’s free and can open i think every compressed file.
It also can create lots of files include 7zip, tar and zip file.
Rar file creating is posible wen u use the command line version of winrar.

http://www.izarc.org/

By: Marty

Marty — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:33:16 +0000

Choosing .7z works fine unless you need to share files with others who may not have 7-zip installed. Also, WinZip has several types of compression, but I don’t see any mention of which type you used. Assuming you used Legacy PKZip 2.0 compression, it’s no surprise the newer formats produced smaller files, but at the expense of compatibility. If you’re not worried about compatiblity then a fair test would use WinZip’s other compression methods like bzip2 or PPMd.

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:15:19 +0000

I support your choice of 7-zip, not only because of it’s compression abilities, but because it is Free and Open Source Software, also, 7-zip is capable of handling archives in .zip, .rar, .tar, and .7z, making it extremely versatile.

Keep spreading the word about open source software!