ZipGenius is the absolutely free file compression software suite for Windows operating systems, that enlights your daily work by saving disk space, organizing documents, protecting important files and collecting your pictures.

ZipGenius lets you compress files to almost any kind of archive. ZipGenius supports more than 20 compressed archive formats, including CD/DVD-ROM image files in ISO9660 standard. This is the file compression suite you were searching for: it is free and easy to use, plus it supports more than 20 formats of compressed archives, including ZIP, RAR, 7-zip, CAB. ACE, ARJ, LHA, RPM, TAR, SQX, OpenOffice.org documents and the excellent ZipGenius now can executable files going to be added to a ZIP archive through the compressor.

ZipGenius is free and absolutely clean from spyware, adware or viruses.

Download: ZipGenius 6.3.1.2501

7-Zip is a free file archiver with highest compression ratio.

The main features of 7-Zip

· High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
· Supported formats:
 · Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
 · Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.
· For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
· Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
· Self-extracting capability for 7z format
· Integration with Windows Shell
· Powerful File Manager
· Powerful command line version
· Plugin for FAR Manager
· Localizations for 74 languages

7-Zip works in Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista (32-bit and x64). There is a port of the command line version to Linux/Unix.

7-Zip is open source software.

Download: 7-Zip 4.65

Download: 7-Zip 9.11 Beta (32bit)

Download: 7-Zip 9.11 Beta (64bit)

WinRAR is a powerful compression tool with many integrated additional functions to help you organize your compressed archives.

WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression. By consistently creating smaller archives, WinRAR is often faster than the competition. This will save you disc space, transmission costs AND valuable working time as well.

WinRAR supports all popular compression formats (RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, ACE, TAR, GZip, UUE, ISO, BZIP2, Z and 7-Zip).

WinRAR is ideal for multimedia files. WinRAR automatically recognizes and selects the best compression method. The special compression algorithm compresses multimedia files, executables and object libraries particularly well.

WinRAR allows you to split archives into separate volumes easily, making it possible to save them on several disks for example.

WinRAR is also ideal, if you are sending data through the web. Its 128 bit password encryption and its authenticated signature technology will give you the peace of mind you have been looking for.

WinRAR is shareware, meaning you have the chance to thoroughly test it. The program can be used absolutely free of charge for 40 days!

Runs on: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, Pocket PC

Download: WinRAR 3.93

Simplyzip is a FREEWARE multi archiver. It does not write any entries to the registry or anywhere else.

Main Features:

• Open: ZIP, CZIP, ACE, CAB, RAR, TAR, GZIP, LZH, BZ2, SQX, RS, UUE, XXE, BASE64, UCL, ARJ, ZLIB, ALIB, RPM, DEB, 7-ZIP
• Create: 7z, ZIP, CZIP, Cab, LHA, TAR, TAR GZ TAR BZ2, ACE (optionale DLL), Deepfreezer, SQX, UCL, RS, ZIP-SFX/LHA-SFX, RAR-SFX, UUE/XXE, ZLIB and Base64.
• Multi-ZIP
• Backup to disk (e.g. CD)
• ZIP-Rpair
• Crypt files with:Rijndael AES/Twofish (both 256bit keysize) and Blowfish (448bit keysize) incl SFX creator and an ArcConverter
• Create RAR/ACE (new version) and LHA SFX
• Localization: English, German, Italian, Spanish, french, portugues-br, Swedish, Thai and Russian
• ZIPSFX now in English, German, French and Spanish (in the setup)
• Standalone: After installation you can copy all files from Simplyzip folder (excepted the uninst.exe) and use it whereever you want

Download: Simplyzip 1.1 Beta 76

WinZip is the original and most trusted file compression software for Windows. No other compression utility is as easy-to-use or offers the comprehensive feature set and productivity-enhancing approach that has made WinZip the gold standard in file compression tools. The new WinZip 14 provides deep integration with Windows, including Microsoft’s latest operating system—Windows 7—as well as innovative features that improve zipping security and simplicity.

With WinZip 14 you can quickly zip and unzip files to conserve storage space, speed up e-mail transmission, and reduce download times. In addition to state-of-the-art file compression, WinZip 14 offers strong AES encryption for securing sensitive data, the ability to bundle files into convenient, compressed packages, and an automated data backup facility to prevent data loss. WinZip creates Zip, LHA, and Zipx files—the smallest Zip files ever—and it opens Zip, Zipx, RAR, 7Z, BZ2, CAB, JAR, IMG, and most other compressed file types.

WinZip 14 even supports photo and image compression. Now you can compress your digital photographs and graphic images by 20 to 25% with no loss of photo quality or data integrity. This lets you send pictures faster and fit more on your flash drive, CD/DVD, or hard disc than ever before.

Requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7.

Download: WinZip 14.0 Build 9029 (45-day trial)

Flexibe, portable, secure, and free as in freedom

PeaZip is a free, open source file and archive manager.

PeaZip is cross platform, available as portable and installable software for 32 and 64 bit Windows 9x, 2000, XP, Vista, WIndows 7 and Linux (PeaZip is a desktop neutral application).

- create 7Z, ARC, BZ2, GZ, PAQ/ZPAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, TAR, UPX, ZIP.
- extract 95 archive types: ACE, ARJ, CAB, DMG, ISO, LHA, RAR, UDF and many more.

PeaZip allows to save archive’s layouts; apply powerful multiple search filters to archive’s content; handle multiple archives at once; export job definition as command line; bookmark archives and folders etc…

Other features: AES256 encryption, robust file copy, split/join files (file span), secure file deletion, compare, checksum and hash files, system benchmark, generate random passwords and keyfiles.

PeaZip is also available as standalone, portable application not needing installation.

Download: PeaZip 3.0

Download: PeaZip Beta

Use #7Z is a 7-Zip GUI for Windows; Q7Z is a P7Zip GUI for Linux. #7Z and Q7Z attempt to simplify data compression and backup.

7-Zip is a file archiver for Windows with a high compression ratio; P7Zip is a port of 7-Zip from Windows to Linux.

Use Q7Z or #7Z if you want to:

· Update existing archives quickly
· Backup multiple folders to a storage location
· Create or extract protected archives
· Lessen effort by using archiving profiles and lists

Operating System: Windows XP/Vista/7, Linux

Download: #7Z Basic Archiver 0.8.1 for Windows

Download: Q7Z Basic Archiver 0.8.0-1 for Linux

SISContents – Unpacking, editing and signing of Symbian SIS packages

SISContents is a tool that allows you to unpack, edit and sign Symbian 9 SIS packages (Nokia S60 3rd, 5th Edition and Sony Ericsson UIQ 3.x platforms are supported). It helps you to inspect the files contained in SIS package, to see certificates against which it was signed as well as to view the PKG script that describes the on-device installation process. You can also edit the contents of packages and sign them after that.

Main features of SISContents:

- read the contents and show information on SIS packages;
- unpack files from SIS packages;
- extract embedded components of packages as sis files (including certificates and signatures);
- view and save installation PKG script;
- sign packages, show information on certificates (validity period, issuer, subject, etc.), and delete them from package;
- edit package: modification of name, vendor, version, type of installation, supported platforms (devices), software dependencies, options is available. You can also add, replace and delete files/components containing in a package and change capabilities, UID3, SID of executables (i.e. exe, dll, ldd, etc.);
- read the contents and unpack files from N-Gage packages;
- extract and edit contents of mif files embedded in sis packages;
- view, extract images from and edit multibitmap (mbm) files embedded in sis packages;
- modify themes for S60 platform.

Compatibility: Windows XP/2003 Server/Vista/2008 Server/Windows 7

SISContents is freeware

Download: SISContents 1.5.7

RarMonkey is a cool, new, freeware utility to extract Rar compressed archive files such as those that are frequently downloaded from forums, file-hosting sites, and newsgroups.

RarMonkey might be cute, but it’s all business when it comes to doing what it was designed to do: extracting Rar files. Because it only does one thing, it does it easily, efficiently, and with style.

RarMonkey can optionally associate itself with Rar files and even integrate with the Windows Shell making it easier than ever to extract any amount of Rar archives in one simple step. You can either just double-click one Rar file or select any amount of them, right-click, and click “Extract with RarMonkey” to start the extraction process. You can also drag any amount of Rar files from Windows Explorer and drop them on the program when it is open to start extracting them.

If you’re extracting lots of Rar files at once, you can select one destination folder, then have the program automatically create new folders under that one for each archive it extracts in the process, naming those new folders after the name of the Rar file. That way the whole operation can happen unattended, since you don’t have to keep selecting destination folders.

Also, if you are extracting multiple Rar archives that are protected by the same password, you can specify one password and have it automatically used for every archive in that operation so you don’t have to keep entering it for every one. This is a unique feature in RarMonkey that is not found in other programs of this type, at least not to our knowledge.

Features at a glance

 · Optionally integrates with Windows Shell (Explorer context menu).
 · Optionally associates itself with Rar files.
 · Can extract several Rar archives at once.
 · Can use one password automatically for multiple archive extractions of Rar files that are protected with the same password.
 · Cool, fun interface.
 · Absolutely free!

Operating system: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/Windows 7.

Download: RarMonkey 1.2

QuickZip features no ads, no spyware and has been a completely free archiver since 1999.

Features

Open all kinds of archives
· Allows you to work with 22 encode and encryption formats and 44 archive extensions. Including the popular 7z format.

Script support
· Run automated backups and other operations using the powerful aks and akp scripts.

Advanced file list
· Advanced file list support, including the highlighting of files that match the user defined filter.
· Thumbnail support to display all pictures in the archive.

Shell integration
· Drag and drop files and directories from file list to explorer to extract or add.
· Context menu support to provide operations directly from the menu, without having to start the main program.

Bookmarks
· Allows you to add archive bookmarks which perform like your browser bookmarks. You can organize your bookmarks into folders.

Tons of tools
· Search in Archive – Search files in archives based on the name, directory, size and date.
· Archive Finder – Look for archives by searching for the files that you are looking for.
· Multi Extract – Allows you to extract multiple archives at the same time.
· Virus Scan Support – Automatically scan for viruses every time you extract using your anti virus software or the included free Clam-AV plugin.
· Mass Renamer – Simple but powerful tool that allows you to rename a group of files using masks.
· Encryption – You can encrypt using Blowfish, Des, 3Dex and Aes encoding methods.
· Other tools including Repair Zip, Archive Convert, SFX and Disk Span.

Download: Quick Zip 5.0.0.10 Beta | Quick Zip Lite 3.1.0.4

FreeArc is a modern general-purpose archiver. Main advantage of FreeArc is fast but efficient compression and rich set of features.

FreeArc works 1.5–3 times faster than best programs in each compression class.

Advantages
- Free, open-source, with Win32 and Linux versions
- Includes LZMA, PPMD, TrueAudio and generic Multimedia compression algorithms with automatic switching by file type
- Filters that further improve compression: REP (finds repetitions at the distances up to 1gb), DICT (dictionary replacements for texts), DELTA (improves compression of tables in binary data), BCJ (executables preproccesor) and LZP (removes repetitions in texts)
- Special compression algorithms are used in fast compression modes (GRZIP for texts and Tornado for binary data)
- Overall, 11 compression algorithms and filters are included (compared to 3 in 7-zip and 7 in RAR) and this number still grows
- Smart file sorting that groups similar files together and fully customizable sorting order (see below) further improve compression
- Typically, FreeArc works 1.5-3 times faster than best programs in each compression class (ccm, 7-zip, rar, uharc -mz, pkzip) while retaining the same compression ratio; from technical grounds, it’s superior to any existing practical compressor
- Moreover, you can use any external program as compressor or filter as easy as internal ones, with Precomp, ECM, CCM(x), PPMonstr, Durilca, LPAQ, UDA and PAQ are already preconfigured in arc.ini as shipped
- You can fine-tune settings for each compression algorithm, and which compression algorithms are used for each type of files; you can create new compression profiles and modify existing ones; use -dic$ option in order to see all details of compression used

FreeArc is portable

Download: FreeArc 0.60

ArcConvert can convert the following archives:

7-ZIP /LZH /CAB /ZIP /ARJ /ACE /RAR /TAR /TGZ /GZ /Z /BZ2 /YZ1 /YZ2 /GCA /BEL /RPM /DEB/ BH/ Noa32 /HKI /PAQAR /SQX /HA /ZOO /UHARC /LFB /ZLIB /UCL /IMP /RS /SPL /APK /Arc /DZ /MSI /ALZ /PMA /PAQ7 /CHM /UDA /PAQ8 /Cryptonite /ISO /LZOP /BMA

to the following ones:

ZIP, 7-ZIP, CAB, LHA, TAR, TGZ, BZ2, YZ1, BGA, RAR, ACE, NOA32, HKI, PAQAR, UHARC, YZ2, DZ, HA

• Includes the EXE from the archiver
• Automatic password detection from archive
• Multilanguage: English, German, Taiwan, Dutch and Italian

Download: ArcConvert 0.58

Vallen Zipper is a simple and pretty small freeware Zip-clone.

For simple file operations like adding, extracting, testing files to Zip archives (PKZip2.04 compatible). Multiple disk spanning and ZIP file splitting supported. Drag & Drop interface with Explorer. No help included but standard and very intuitive interface.

Self-extracting archive. No installation required.

Full Unicode support!

No spyware, no nag screens, just free (private use only)

GUI application, supports Windows 2000/XP/Vista.

Download: Vallen Zipper 2.30 Build 2009.1215

IZArc is the best freeware archive utility supporting many archive formats like: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO. With a modern easy-to-use interface, IZArc provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, converting from one archive type to another, view and write comments and many more. IZArc has also build-in multilanguage support.

With IZArc you can open CD image files like ISO, BIN, CDI and NRG.
It is also possible to convert such files from one type to another (BIN to ISO, NRG to ISO).

If you need to send large files to your colleagues, friends or customers who may not have archiving tool you can easily create self-extracting archive that can be extracted by simple double click.

IZArc can be configured to run your preferred Anti-Virus scanner when you open any archives.

IZArc supports 256-bit AES encryption to secure your data.

IZArc is integrated in Windows so you can perform all archiving operations by using right-click menus in Windows Explorer.

If you have broken archives IZArc can help you to repair them with ease.

IZArc is 100% virus free and it doesn’t contain any spyware or adware.

IZArc is the most complete archive utility available today.

System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

Download: IZArc 4.1

ArcThemAll is a portable software to multi-compress files and folders in UPX, ZIP and 7z formats. It includes an intelligent UPX compression mode, the support to self-extracting archive creation, the encryption/decryption of archives and much more.

Download: ArcThemAll! 2.1.1

RAR File Open Knife is not a Swiss Army Knife. It is rather like a precious steak knife: very specialised and efficient. The tool only opens RAR archives. As fast as possible. One can open a RAR file by drag ‘n’ drop, double click or shell integrated context menu. To speed the process up, RAR File Open Knife has the option to define a default output folder and a default password.

If selected, RAR File Open Knife automatically creates new subfolders for each RAR archive it opens. The new folders are named automatically after the archive being opened.

The program comes with short instructions in over 50 languages, the engine is highly optimized. In performance tests RAR File Open Knife was 2-11% faster than WinRAR, 7-Zip etc.

Download: RAR File Open Knife 1.00

RarZilla Free Unrar is a beautiful decompression tool for RAR-archives that supports spanned archives as well as the extraction of password protected files. Decompression can be started by drag ‘n’ drop, double click or shell integrated context menu. To speed the whole process up, RarZilla has the option to define a default output folder or a default password or both.

RarZilla Free Unrar Portable is smaller, optimized for mobile use – e.g. on an USB-Stick – and comes without setup routine.

Just extract all files and “RarZilla Free Unrar Portable” is ready to be used. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.

Download: RarZilla Free Unrar 2.55 | RarZilla Free Unrar Portable 2.55

UPX is a versatile executable packer with the following features:

• excellent compression ratio: typically compresses better than WinZip/zip/gzip, use UPX to decrease the size of your distribution !
• very fast decompression: ~10 MB/sec on an ancient Pentium 133, ~200 MB/sec on an Athlon XP 2000+.
• no memory overhead for your compressed executables because of in-place decompression.
• safe: you can list, test and unpack your executables. Also, a checksum of both the compressed and uncompressed file is maintained internally.
• universal: UPX can pack a number of executable formats.
• portable: UPX is written in portable endian-neutral C++
• extendable: because of the class layout it’s very easy to add new executable formats or new compression algorithms
• free: UPX is distributed with full source code under the GNU General Public License, and may be used freely even with commercial programs.

You probably understand now why we call UPX the “Ultimate Packer for eXecutables”.

UPX is based on experience with our previous packers DJP and lzop and uses the NRV compression library.

Download: UPX 3.04 Windows, Linux

Game ressource extractor with explorer-like interface

Dragon UnPACKer allow you to open the game resource files in an explorer-like interface then extract the content at will.

More than 80 games are supported directly. If the game is not supported, Dragon UnPACKer include a very useful tool named HyperRipper. This tool searches for known patterns in unknown file formats. This allows to extract texture, sounds, music and more from unknown file formats!

Dragon UnPACKer is Free and Open Source!

Download: Dragon UnPACKer 5.5.1 Beta

ExtractNow is a simple utility that allows you to extract multiple archives quickly and easily. ExtractNow is not a complete archival solution. It’s main purpose it to allow the user to extract multiple archives easily.

Why wear out your clicking finger extracting files one by one when you can extract at once? ExtractNow does a fine job of bundling compressed files and extracting their contents in one fell swoop. ExtractNow has a clean, well-designed and easy-to-use interface. To extract files, simply drag and drop them into the main program window, or right-click the files while in Windows Explorer. ExtractNow supports the two most popular compression formats, ZIP and RAR, as well as a handful of other formats. Simple but not simplistic, this is a powerful and reliable program that will be of use to anyone who manages many compressed files.

Features
 · Supports ZIP, RAR, ISO, BIN, IMG, IMA, IMZ, 7Z, ACE, JAR, GZ, LZH, LHA, TAR, 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

Download: ExtractNow 4.39

Download: ExtractNow 4.40.26 Beta

UltimateZip is an easy to use archive utilty. With it’s flexible user interface, UltimateZip is easy to use for first-time users and offers many features for power users.

Superior ZIP Suport
· Including Huge Zip Files (> 2gb) and more

Very Strong 7-Zip Compression
· 7-Zip outperforms all other archive formates
· Supports multi-core processors

Build-in Viewer and Preview feature
· Supports more than 100 of the most common filetypes

Support for Multiple other Archive Formats
· RAR, ACE, CAB, JAR, LHA, LZH and more

Advanced Security
· ZIP-AES encryption and UZE-AES encryption

Powerful backup feature
· Safe your important files with UZ Backup

UltimateZip comes with a full set of command line tools. All important archive operations can be done via command line.

UltimateZip is free for private use.

Download: UltimateZip 5.0.1