

- #Hamster free zip archiver 3 years agomore archive#
- #Hamster free zip archiver 3 years agomore rar#
- #Hamster free zip archiver 3 years agomore software#
- #Hamster free zip archiver 3 years agomore password#
- #Hamster free zip archiver 3 years agomore windows#

Ashampoo Zip Free is a rare exception, with a clear interface and an optional touch mode with larger, tap-friendly icons. Many free Winzip alternatives hide their best features behind a complex system of menus. The only key feature it's missing is the ability to repair damaged archives - other than that, it's a truly exceptional program.
#Hamster free zip archiver 3 years agomore password#
You can apply password protection to packaged archives and split them into volumes, which is handy for sharing particularly large archives. 7-Zip can also create self-extracting 7z archives. Its own 7z format is designed for high compression, and is supported by almost all file archiving tools – both paid-for and free – making it an ideal choice for sharing.
#Hamster free zip archiver 3 years agomore windows#
You can locate files to be archived using a simple Windows Explorer-style file tree, or drag and drop them into the main window.
#Hamster free zip archiver 3 years agomore archive#
It's only 1MB in size, and can pack and unpack just about any compressed file archive you can throw at it.ħ-Zip isn't the most attractive WinZip alternative around, but it's so well designed that you won't miss the slick interfaces of its paid-for equivalents. Here then are the best free WinZip alternatives we could find.ħ-Zip is open source, meaning it's completely free, even for commercial use.

Therefore a lot of users will want an alternative to the Windows utility and it's good to know what options are available other than WinZip. In fact, if you use it to compress an encrypted file, it will be decrypted when extracted. It can only read and create ZIP files (there are dozens of other formats).Īdditionally, the built-in Windows zip utility doesn't let you create multiple volumes of a particular size, can't repair damaged archives, and doesn't support encryption. This is fine for very occasional use, but is very limited. Windows (from XP onwards) has a built-in compression tool, accessed by right-clicking one or more folders/files, and selecting 'Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder'.
#Hamster free zip archiver 3 years agomore software#
WinZip is the best-known software for creating and opening compressed file archives, but it's not the only option and there are many superb free alternatives worth investigating before you open your wallet. An added bonus to that is that you may use PAR tools to create recovery files.įor extraction, you could pick any of the programs with the exception of WinZip as it performed poorly in the second extraction test.Click the links below to go to the provider's website:
#Hamster free zip archiver 3 years agomore rar#
WinRAR may be an option if you don't mind creation RAR archives. If it is compression size you are after, you might want to test 7-Zip or PeaZip instead. compression options, format support, or business support, may play a role as well.Īs far as recommendations go: if you compress a lot of files, you may want to check out Bandizip as it performed really well. The two factors are important but others, e.g. Speed and size are just two factors that play a role when it comes to compression software. WinRAR did perform better than WinZip in all tests despite ZIP being WinZIPs main format. The free archivers performed well during tests and at least one of them managed to beat the commercial programs in all tests. WinZip came in last with a running time of 480 seconds. Bandizip, which performed really well in the other tests required 117 seconds to extract the archives. PeaZip was the fastest with 69 seconds followed by 7-Zip which just needed a second more. The situation changed significantly when it came to the second extraction test. Third-placed WinRAR needed 13 seconds for the task. Second placed were 7-Zip, PeaZip, and WinZIP which all needed 12 seconds. Second-placed in this test was WinRAR which required roughly two times the time of Bandizip.Įxtraction was closer together: Bandizip performed best in the first task as it needed only 8 seconds to extract the first archive. The software performed badly when settings were set to maximum compression though as it needed roughly 10 times the time Bandizip required. 7-Zip did well in the default compression test as it was just 2 seconds slower than first-placed Bandizip. For the first file, it took only 5 seconds and 11 seconds to compress it whereas the second fastest, WinRAR, took 13 seconds and 23 seconds to perform the same operation.īandizip was fastest for the second task as well as it took the software 45 and 46 seconds to compress the Gigabyte-sized archive in normal and best compression settings. Bandizip performed well in all compression tasks it came first in all tests and often by a huge margin. Extraction Test #2: 10 ZIP archives with a size between 13 Megabytes and 1.36 Gigabytes, and a total size of 4.09 Gigabytes and over 20000 files.Extraction Test #1: A ZIP archive with a size of 1.36 Gigabytes.File types include documents, images, video files, and other file types. Compression Test #2: 180 files with a size of 3.46 Gigabytes.Compression Test #1: Folder with 11 subfolders and 100 files, and a total size of 949 Megabytes.
