Download 7-Zip 9.20

Softworld editor's review - 2011-11-15

Free and powerful archiver

7-Zip is an application with which you are able to extract and compress all of your files. The installation process you can easily say that is lightning fast and on top of that the program will take on your hard drive very little space. The moment you open 7-Zip in front of you will appear a interface which in terms of usability is very similar with what Winace and Winrar has to offer.

To navigate through the menus is very easy because there are not many. At the top of the window you have available basic sections such as File, Edit, View, Favorites, Tools and Help. By accessing the file menu you will be able to open all of your archives and also various files. Beside that in this section there are basic functions such as rename, copy to, move to, delete, split files, combine files etc.

In the tools menu there are several useful options. You can choose to associate 7-Zip with all kind of archive formats.
This file compression application is available in a wide variety of languages. To perform a basic extract operation with this program all that you have to do is to enter the system menu and search for archived files.

Once you have located this type of files all that is left to do is to select them and then press extract. In our test 7-Zip managed to extract a 7GB archive in just a couple of minutes. So is definitely just as fast as its main rivals. However the application has a very important advantage over its competitors: it's completely free.

Some of the paid archivers offer some extra features and a little bit more stability. However most of the users will use only the basic functions of such an application and the best part is that 7-Zip has managed to implement those extremely well. So if you are looking for a free alternative to Winrar or Winace i strongly recommend using 7-Zip.

Good:

-as fast as its paid rivals
-completely free
-decent looking and easy to use interface
-supports a wide variety of archive formats

Bad:

-none

Version 9.20 reviewed on: 15 Nov 2011

Publisher's description

This free file archiver offers a high compression ratio.

7-Zip is open source software. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license. This application can be used on any computer, including a computer in a commercial organization.

7-Zip has some top notch features:

-High compression ratio in 7z format with LZMA and LZMA2 compression
-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 79 languages

Available Translations: