The file archiving technology that originally came in ZIP extension was founded in 1989 by PKWARE and is still widely being used today. The good thing about using archive is you get to compress multiple files into one and also reducing the file size. This will allow anyone to easily transfer multiple files by sending only 1 file and also saving both time and bandwidth since the file size is smaller after compression. Today there are other archive formats such as RAR, 7z, ACE, CAB, GZIP, TAR and etc but the archive format that is being used widely is still ZIP. Even Windows started to natively support opening and extracting ZIP files since XP without using a third party software.
You probably don’t need a third party archiver software if you only extract ZIP files. However if you need to create ZIP files by compressing multiple files into one, then there are more than 10 different software to do the job. Every software archiver comes with its own special features but in the end the most important thing is still the speed when compress or extract an archive file and the output size of the compressed file. Most of them claim to be the fastest with the best compression rate but you will never know who is telling the truth until you’ve put all of them to the test. Fortunately we’ve put 15 file archiver software to the test to see who has the best compression rate plus the fastest speed.
To test the file archivers, we compressed three different file formats which is one AVI file at 1.95GB, 100 EXE files at 217MB, 800 TXT files at 70.1MB, extracting a 1.93GB ZIP archive, and finally try to open the Firefox omni.ja file which is actually a valid JAR file that is supported by most archivers except optimized where some picky archivers will think that it is corrupted.
The following file archiver software are being tested in search for the best archiver with fastest compressing/extracting speed and smallest in output file.
1. 7-Zip
2. ALZip
3. Bandizip
4. HAMSTER Free ZIP Archiver
5. HaoZip
6. IZArc
7. PeaZip
8. PKZIP
9. PowerArchiver
10. TurboZIP
11. UltimateZip
12. WinArchiver
13. WinRAR
14. WinZip
15. ZipGenius
After hours of testing the file archivers, the results are compiled in a table. The results that are highlight in yellow is what you want which is either the fastest or smallest in size. You can click on the image below to open a larger version of the image.
ZipGenius and PowerZIP did not make it to the list because ZipGenius is crashing the Explorer.exe process whenever I use the right click context menu and PowerZIP right click context menu did not work at all.
I would say that the popular 7-Zip did above average but definitely not the best. I would highly recommend Bandizip for the freeware version of file archiver and if you’re willing to spend money to purchase the shareware version of file archiver, it would be either WinRAR or PowerArchiver.
Raymond, give NanoZIP a try too.
Site: nanozip.net
Comparison: compressionratings.com/app3.html
Bandizip may be fast, but it has flaws. It does not let you add files to password protected archives. Previously it wouldn’t even let you modify existing files in a password protected archive but they seem to have fixed that problem. Plus there are confusing dialog messages. If you’re about to overwrite an existing archive it will say, “The same files exists” followed by a Yes and No button. I thought it was asking me if the file already existed so I clicked yes. It should just say, “The archive already exists. Do you want to overwrite it?” That’s lazy english.
7-zip also has a serious flaw that’s been around for years. If you add a file to an existing .7z archive that is password protected AND has encrypted file names protection on it, it will disable the encrypted file names. Next time you open the archive it will not ask you for a password first and all the names of your files will be visible. You still have to enter the password to view the files but anyone can see the names. This problem was reported years ago but they don’t bother to fix it.
I think Haozip is the best all around. No major flaws that I can see. But I recommend having multiple archive programs just in case one or the other fails to do some task.
Bandizip is great
So between 7-zip & PeaZip who is better at it as well as more features? As I am a semi casual usual who has been with winrar for way too many years to count. Still love their lifetime license!
Problem I see these days is if you use a better compression archiver is if you bring those files to your friend they don’t have the format to uninstall. Zip is most common and you can open it on clean installed windows without need to install any software. Most people also knows about rar these days but 7z not so much and even worse for all other formats.
hi raymond
please checkout kuaizip
http://forum.raymond.cc/software/34584-kuaizip-alternative-to-7-zip-and-winrar.html
Nice comparison. Thank you!. After trying most of the freeware you tested, I settled on FreeArc for a couple reasons: its speed beats, and compression equals, 7-Zip (my previous favorite), and its encryption capabilities include both a number of algorithm choices and the ability to use a key file simultaneously or sequentially. PeaZip provided most of the same features, but adding files to an existing archive didn’t work well for me. Quite a bit of what I do is extremely confidential, and I need to store a backup in the cloud, so encryption is critical for me. You might want to consider that among the factors you use to compare file archivers. Don’t know if it would pass your Omni.ja test, though.
Everyone’s forgotten UHARC. Checkout WinUHA. Nothing like it in raw compression power. (Although, not really text optimised.)
@Raymond: It appears that different language versions of FireFox have different omni.ja files. I speak Dutch and so I donwloaded and installed the Dutch version. The omni.ja file from the Dutch version will open at least from the right-click menu in explorer.
You can see for yourself if you like. Just download the US-en version of FireFox 15.0.1 and also the Dutch version (give each a different name). Right-click on the .exe files and extract using 7-Zip (faster then installing each application). Omni.ja will be in the core subfolder.
thanks for testing and Bandizip can create and extract ZipX files
Peter, a quick video demo to show that I couldn’t open omni.ja with 7-Zip and PeaZip.
http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/clQDIVNVl
I hope you have Java installed.
Unless the omni.ja you have is modified, it won’t open like the ones listed in the table.
Sorry bout that ray, the Usage code syntax got munged. I wasn’t thinking… Arrows equal html code. SORRY.
AIN 2.32 Copyright (c) 1993-96 Transas Marine Ltd.
A new archiver. In some cases it compresses twice better than the well-
known ARJ 2.41, which it is similar to by the features it provides. It is
also faster than any other archiver.
Usage
AIN [{/|-}...] [.AIN]
[\] [@|...]
a: Add files to archive
d: Delete files from archive
e: Extract files from archive
f: Freshen files in archive
l: List of contents of archive
m: Move files to archive
t: Test integrity of archive
u: Update files to archive
v: Verbosely list contents of archive
x: eXtract files with full pathname
y: copY archive with new options
Continue? [Y/AY/Q]
@Raymond
I think I read the article a little too fast and missed the part about multiple exe and txt files. So I must take that back. This makes the test better, but still only for handling zip files.
I did have 7-zip and PeaZip on my computer and thought I try opening the strange omni.ja file myself. In the table here it says that neither of the support opening that file. On my computer BOTH 7-Zip 9.20 (x86) and PeaZip 4.6.1 successfully opened the file. It seems to me that you’ve made a mistake there.
For comparing between different archivers I think it’s important to mention that different archivers offer different compression ratios. Some offer only 3 option: none, normal, best. Others have a huge list like: none, fastest, fast, normal, better, best, ultra. So it’s reasonable to take into account that different file sizes come with different compression times.
Taking speed as the first concern, WinRAR than takes the lead in compressing txt files because it achieves the best compression ratio at the best time.
Then 1 more consideration. You’ve never mention on what system you have done these tests. Some archivers support multicore CPU’s while others don’t. I personally only have a single core CPU in my pc. (And a multi-core in the laptop). This could mean a big difference in speed! The amount of memory could make a difference when compressing larger files and the speed of the harddisk, but propably not as much as the cpu single- or multi- core.
I still don’t agree for compressing avi files. Many people don’t realise that avi is already compressed and shouldn’t be recompressed. They post these files zipped to file hosting services, but they should not. Rather then testing for this (and silently agreeing) I would like to make it a point of informing people that they should not do that. The only reason for putting an avi into an archive would be to split it up into multiple archives. And in that case I would recommend selecting the lowest (and fastest) compression ratio setting.
I’ve installed Bandizip now on my computer to try an see for myself. On their website they say that 7-zip has some support for multi-core cpu’s, but Bandizip still has better support (can handle a single file over multiple cpu cores). So I wanted to try it. But Bandizip doesn’t support creating rar, 7z, ace, … archives. Only zip, zipx, exe, tar: but those formats don’t offer the better compression ratios. WinRAR is good, but using 7-zip has the advantage that I can recommend/install it on any persons computer without debate about purchasing it.
PeaZip support creating .paq files and some site say it has the very best compression ratio. I have tried it and it does seem to make small files. I should warn people who are interested that it does take a VERY long time to compress.
For me, 7-Zip remains the best utility because it does more than handling zip files. A free utility has the advantage that you can recommend it without asking people to purchase anything. And 7-Zip is even Open Source (and I like open source better than freeware). Only Bandizip and Haozip have considerably better extraction times. Bandizip doesn’t have good compression options and I didn’t like the missing option to run in the background. Haozip does support compressing to 7z format, but with fewer options to tweak. It does look better, more beautiful, than 7-Zip and adds a ‘shutdown pc when done’ option.
Since I like Open Source better, I still prefer 7-Zip. HaoZip may be better for English speaking Non-Technical people because it has a better GUI (in English or Chinese).
You’re a bit off on the compression history. SEA (System Enhancement Associates) introduce the .ARC format two (2) or three (3) years before Phil Katz (PKWARE) introduce the .ZIP format. In fact, Phil introduced some enhancements into the .ARC format. SEA sued, Phil was forced to turn over his code, and SEA’s .ARC format immediately became much faster.
In retaliation, Phil devised the .ZIP format and donated it to the Public Domain. SEA’s .ARC format didn’t advance much further – to the best of my knowledge, SEA went under. Phil died a few years later of acute alcoholism. This was common knowledge on CompuServe (BBS, not Web) at the time, and a topic much under discussion when Phil was forced to turn over his original code to SEA.
Hi Ray,
I think you should mention the compression settings that you have used to zip the files and the compression methods like LZMA2, BZip2, PPMd, Deflate64 etc.
Also, as a fact that people today use many other compression formats other than ZIP, it would be simply great if you could extend this article to have compression ratios across the formats like 7z against RAR or may be ZIP file.
This should make this article very worthy enough :-).
In my view, I think one of the best softwares in market today are 7Zip (7z), WinRar (RAR) and WinArchiver (arc).
As far as the best compression format goes, I would say 7z and RAR go head to head. With a little bit of tweak for me 7z always wins :-).
@Peter: Thanks for your honest comment and I agree that more tests could have been done. We would most probably find another compression format that performs much better than ZIP which is rarely being used. That is why only ZIP is being quickly tested here.
The AVI is just one of the valid test because when AVI was popular, they were being offered as zipped file and you don’t really get to download them as pure AVI file from file hosting websites.
The test for TXT and EXE comprises of 100 EXE files at 217MB, 800 TXT files at 70.1MB.
Nice one Ray………..
I think that another important test could be the time lasted for extracting an archive composed by really lots of file. I’m regularly compressing and extracting millions of text files and that can really make the differences…
“Even Windows started to natively support opening and extracting ZIP files since XP without using a third party software”
Wrong, sorry. It was Win ME the first to natively support zip.
In rest, very useful.
PS: Do you know the chinese free stuff named KuaiZip? It is an WinRar Clone Plus :)
Sadly I do not agree with this testing methode.
An AVI file shouldn’t be compressed at all because it’s already an archive. It’s like zipping a ZIP file. That just not right. What codec what used anyway?
Compressing exe and text files is nice, but there might still be differences between different exe or text file. Why only test the compression of 1 and the same file for each type?
Also if an archiver claims to be better, faster, … It probably means that for it’s own format. Ofcourse it’s a little unfair because another format uses a different compression algorithm, but then it’s also unfair to say they are wrong to claim to be better. You’ve twisted their words.
The test only considers speed and compression ratio for ZIP files. But if I only wanted to use zip files, I could just use the Windows standard build-in functionality. Ofcourse I want to use a different format! So why isn’t the amount of supported formats considered?
In short, this test is too quick and dirty to make a real comparison between archivers. At best it give some comparison for their ability to work with zip files. And as I said, I don’t agree to that at all.
I have used and then bought winrar years ago and never regret making the purchase. But I thought by now there should be better archive/compression methods since rar like zip is outdated by now. Have high hopes for 7z, also to look out for is Freearc which seems to be making waves recently.
Winrar all this while, no reason to change yet i guess :)
I use PowerArhiver and I am very pleased with it , I can say that the consumption of resources uses much less as Winrar .. Very useful and good article thanks
@Somrik: Only up to date archiver are included in the test. KGB Archiver last updated nearly 2 years ago.
@Marc: I’ve only done the ZIP test because it is the most common archive format being used.
@Kees: I will check Bandizip again based on what you’ve reported. PowerArchiver is actually my favorite archiver too!
@roy raay: Thanks mate. Although we’ve been pretty quiet recently, but a lot has been going on behind the scenes. We hope to provide something new in October.
@Lara Smith: You can’t go wrong with WinRAR :)
I wonder why KGB archiver isn’t included. It does take a lot of time and resources but stil one of the best compression ratios ever.
nice post ray, I use WinRAR and I’m very love it,
but how about usability ? which one is the best ?
I was missing the kind of analysis articles only found in Raymond.cc ;)
Quite interesting actually: WinRAR wins when it comes to text, Bandizip and Winzip when it comes to avi. Results were quite a bit different from what I expected: I thought 7-Zip was going to take the lead, while WinRAR would be on the regular average. Now we can certainly calculate the speed of compression and merge size and time data for easier comparison.
What I’m left to wonder is how do compression formats stand against each other: example 7z vs rar or zip, each one perhaps with his original application 7z -> 7-Zip rar -> WinRAR Zip -> WinZip.
Kind Regards,
Marc
I tried Bandizip some months ago, but did not like it overly much. It could extract .arj files, which is what I need, but it also installed a proxy bypass and an DNS request. I guess that the developer wants to check how the program works, but I don’t particularly like that. My main reason for uninstalling was that I could only use it when logged in as an administrator, which made it worthless for me. Reinstalled PowerArchiver.
thanks for the writeup mate. sure was informative! been a couple of weeks since i got newletters form you, sigh!!
in file compression, i first use winzip then i bumped into winrar… since then i didn’t switch to other file compression softwares… thanks for this review…. :)
I’m surprised that ZipGenius still crashes. I had the same experience with ZipGenius but that was version 5.