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2.0 out of 5 starsI DID like it. Then the pop-up ads and notifications started.

Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2018

Edited: When the new version of this software came out - Ver. 24, this version started displaying non-stop pop-up ads. I'd disable them, end the process, change my registry. They'd be back after the next reboot. I finally had to hunt down out the offending program and delete it manually. Then the software tried to reinstall it. Come on!!! I would NEVER buy one of their products again just because of this underhanded behavior.

Original: This program has a LOT of features beyond simple compression. It can encrypt/password protect, watermark, strip meta info, expire files and more. It only creates zip files, but it can extract/decompress RAR, ISO, TAR, CAB, 7Z and many more.

You can drag and drop to add files or use the built-in browser. The drop-down menus, icons and multiplicity of shared and nested menus tends to make things a bit confusing. For example, when selecting options for encryption, watermarking, remove info and several other selections, the same menu appears. So to encrypt, I turn on encryption and select encryption options. The encryption options menu is simply another menu with encryption, reduce photos, remove info, etc all on a shared menu. I pick encryption AGAIN from this menu and I finally have the encryption options. One annoyance is that you have to select these options BEFORE you select the files. I dragged in a bunch of files, then selected the encryption option. Made the zip file. Was never asked for a password - because it was not encrypted. Started a new zip file, selected encryption, then dragged in the files and was immediately asked for a password.

Compression is fast, and of course depends on the file type. CR2 files? 5% to 8% compression. XMP files? 65%.

Some of the options are confusing. For example, "reduce photos" I assumed would be a different compression algorithm. Nope - it resizes photos based on standard video sizes. Watermark allows you to add a simple text watermark.

If you shoot photos for a living, this can really reduce your workflow - reduce, watermark and password ZIP your proof files in a single step.

There are a LOT of automated features. Collect files from multiple locations for backups, save to the cloud or locally, great document libraries, schedule jobs, batch convert photos, timestamp files and even more. It's one of those programs you'll be discovering features on for a while.

It's also included in 32 and 64 bit, and you can download an installer. Yes, you need a SN to register and an internet connection to activate. The SN is in the case behind the disc.

It's a great program, but the sometimes confusing menu layout reduced it a star.

WinZip can create Zip files (.zip or .zipx), lha/lzh files, and UUencoded files (does not apply to versions earlier than WinZip 12). WinZip can also open and extract from a number of other archive formats.

Archive formats supported by WinZip are listed in the table below. Please note that in cases where the version is listed as ALL, this applies to all currently supported WinZip versions. For a brief description of these archive formats and WinZip's support of them, please see the article Other Archive Support.

Note:IMG support is limited to ISO-type disc image files.

Encoding formats supported:

• MIME encoding generally uses the Base64 format, but also includes plain/text and quoted-printable formats.
• The Extension columns list some of the most commonly used filename extensions for files in the various archive and encoding formats. This list, however, is not exhaustive.

Note: In versions of WinZip earlier than WinZip 11.2 the lha/lzh formats were supported only with the external lha.exe program. Two other formats were also supported with external programs. For these earlier versions the above list would be amended as follows:

If you have any questions about this information, please submit a Technical Support ticket.

Related Articles:
Additional Compression Methods Specification
Other Archive Support

Developer(s)	Igor Pavlov[1]
Initial release	19 July 1999; 21 years ago (1999-07-19)[2]
Stable release	19.00 (21 February 2019; 18 months ago (2019-02-21)) [±][3]
Preview release	20.02 alpha (8 August 2020; 36 days ago (2020-08-08)) [±][4]
Repository
Written in	C++[5]
Operating system	Windows, Linux, macOS, ReactOS[6]
Size	1.1–1.7 MB[7]
Available in	89 languages[8]
Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Aragonese, Armenian, Asturian, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Bashkir, Basque, Belarusian, Breton, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Extremaduran, Farsi, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Indian, Hebrew, Hindi, Indian, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ido, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kabyle, Karakalpak - Latin, Kazakh, Korean, Kurdish - Sorani, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Latvian, Ligurian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Marathi, Mongolian (MenkCode), Mongolian (Unicode), Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian Bokmal, Norwegian Nynorsk, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese Brazilian, Portuguese Portugal, Punjabi, Indian, Romanian, Russian, Sanskrit, Indian, Serbian - Cyrillic, Serbian - Latin, Sinhala, Vietnam ,Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Tatar, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uyghur, Uzbek, Valencian, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yoruba These translations are partial and for the user interface only. Help and documentations are in English.
Type	File archiver
License	LGPLv2.1+ with unRAR restriction[9] / LZMA SDK in the public domain[10]
Website	www.7-zip.org/

7-Zip is a free and open-sourcefile archiver, a utility used to place groups of files within compressed containers known as "archives". It is developed by Igor Pavlov and was first released in 1999.^[2] 7-Zip uses its own 7z archive format, but can read and write several other archive formats. The program can be used from a command-line interface as the command p7zip,^[11] or through a graphical user interface that also features shell integration. Most of the 7-Zip source code is under the GNU LGPL license; the unRAR code, however, is under the GNU LGPL with an "unRAR restriction", which states that developers are not permitted to use the code to reverse-engineer the RAR compression algorithm.^[12][13]

Formats[edit]

7z[edit]

By default, 7-Zip creates 7z-format archives with a file extension. Each archive can contain multiple directories and files. As a container format, security or size reduction are achieved using a stacked combination of filters. These can consist of pre-processors, compression algorithms, and encryption filters.

The core 7z compression uses a variety of algorithms, the most common of which are bzip2, PPMd, LZMA2, and LZMA. Developed by Pavlov, LZMA is a relatively new system, making its debut as part of the 7z format. LZMA uses an LZ-based sliding dictionary of up to 4 GB in size, backed by a range coder.^[14]

The native 7z file format is open and modular. File names are stored as Unicode.^[15]

In 2011, TopTenReviews found that the 7z compression was at least 17% better than ZIP,^[16] and 7-Zip's own site has since 2002 reported that while compression ratio results are very dependent upon the data used for the tests, "Usually, 7-Zip compresses to 7z format 30–70% better than to zip format, and 7-Zip compresses to zip format 2–10% better than most other zip-compatible programs."^[17]

The 7z file format specification is distributed with the program's source code, in the "doc" subdirectory.

Others[edit]

7-Zip supports a number of other compression and non-compression archive formats (both for packing and unpacking), including ZIP, gzip, bzip2, xz, tar, and WIM. The utility also supports unpacking APM, ar, ARJ, chm, cpio, deb, FLV, JAR, LHA/LZH, LZMA, MSLZ, Office Open XML, onepkg, RAR, RPM, smzip, SWF, XAR, and Z archives and cramfs, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, MBR, NTFS, SquashFS, UDF, and VHDdisk images. 7-Zip supports the ZIPX format for unpacking only. It has had this support since at least version 9.20, which was released in late 2010.

7-Zip can open some MSI files, allowing access to the meta-files within along with the main contents. Some Microsoft CAB (LZX compression) and NSIS (LZMA) installer formats can be opened. Similarly, some Microsoft executable programs (.EXEs) that are self-extracting archives or otherwise contain archived content (e.g., some setup files) may be opened as archives.

When compressing ZIP or gzip files, 7-Zip uses its own DEFLATE encoder, which may achieve higher compression, but at lower speed, than the more common zlib DEFLATE implementation. The 7-Zip deflate encoder implementation is available separately as part of the AdvanceCOMP suite of tools.

The decompression engine for RAR archives was developed using freely available source code of the unRAR program, which has a licensing restriction against creation of a RAR compressor. 7-Zip v15.06 and later support extraction of files in the RAR5 format.^[18] Some backup systems use formats supported by archiving programs such as 7-Zip; e.g., some Android backups are in format, and can be extracted by archivers such as 7-Zip.^[19]

File manager[edit]

7-Zip comes with a file manager along with the standard archiver tools. The file manager has a toolbar with options to create an archive, extract an archive, test an archive to detect errors, copy, move, and delete files, and open a file properties menu exclusive to 7-Zip. The file manager, by default, displays hidden files because it does not follow Windows Explorer's policies. The tabs show name, modification time, original and compressed sizes, attributes, and comments (4DOS format).

When going up one directory on the root, all drives, removable or internal appear. Going up again shows a list with four options:

• Computer: loads the drives list
• Documents: loads user's documents, usually at
• Network: loads a list of all network clients connected
• \\.: Same as "Computer" except loads the drives in low-level NTFS access. This results in critical drive files and deleted files still existing on the drive to appear. (NOTE: Access to the active partition in low-level mode is not allowed for currently^[when?] unknown reasons.)

Features[edit]

7-Zip supports:

• The 256-bit AES cipher. Encryption can be enabled for both files and the 7z hierarchy. When the hierarchy is encrypted, users are required to supply a password to see the filenames contained within the archive. WinZip-developed Zip file AES encryption standard is also available in 7-Zip to encrypt ZIP archives with AES 256-bit, but it does not offer filename encryption as in 7z archives.^[20]
• Volumes of dynamically variable sizes, allowing use for backups on removable media such as writable CDs and DVDs
• Usability as a basic orthodox file manager when used in dual panel mode
• Multiple-core CPU threading^[21]
• Opening EXE files as archives, allowing the decompression of data from inside many "Setup" or "Installer" or "Extract" type programs without having to launch them
• Unpacking archives with corrupted filenames, renaming the files as required
• Create self-extracting single-volume archives
• Command-line interface^[22]
• Graphical user interface. The Windows version comes with its own GUI; however, p7zip uses the GUI of the Unix/Linux Archive Manager.^[23]

Variants[edit]

Two command-line versions are provided: 7z.exe, using external libraries; and a standalone executable 7za.exe, containing built-in modules, but with compression/decompression support limited to 7z, ZIP, gzip, bzip2, Z and tar formats. A 64-bit version is available, with support for large memory maps, leading to faster compression. All versions support multi-threading.

The 7za.exe version of 7-Zip is available for Unix-like operating systems (including Linux, FreeBSD, and macOS), FreeDOS, OpenVMS, AmigaOS 4, and MorphOS under the p7zip project.^[11]

Software development kit[edit]

7-Zip has a LZMASDK which was originally dual-licensed under both the GNU LGPL and Common Public License,^[24] with an additional special exception for linked binaries. On December 2, 2008, the SDK was placed by Igor Pavlov in the public domain.^[10]

Security[edit]

On older versions self-extracting archives were vulnerable to arbitrary code execution through DLL hijacking: they load and run a DLL named UXTheme.dll, if it is in the same folder as the executable file.^[25][26][27] 7-Zip 16.03 Release notes say that the installer and SFX modules have added protection against DLL preloading attack.^[28]

Versions of 7-Zip prior to 18.05 contain an arbitrary code execution vulnerability in the module for extracting files from RAR archives (CVE-2018-10115), a vulnerability that was fixed on 30 April 2018.^[29]

Reception and usage[edit]

Snapfiles.com in 2012 rated 7-Zip 4.5 stars out of 5, noting, "[its] interface and additional features are fairly basic, but the compression ratio is outstanding".^[30]

On TechRepublic in 2009, Justin James found the detailed settings for Windows File Manager integration were "appreciated" and called the compression-decompression benchmark utility "neat". And though the archive dialog has settings that "will confound most users", he concluded: "7-Zip fits a nice niche in between the built-in Windows capabilities and the features of the paid products, and it is able to handle a large variety of file formats in the process."^[31]

Between 2002 and 2016, 7-Zip was downloaded 410 million times from SourceForge alone.^[32]

The software has received awards. In 2007, SourceForge granted it community choice awards for "Technical Design" and for "Best Project".^[33] In 2013, 7-Zip received Tom's Hardware Elite award due to superiority in speed and compression ratio.^[34]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 7-Zip.