Archiver Software (ZIP, RAR, ACE, etc.)

 

 
7z
Open Source, it has two main advantages (besides being free of course): it automatically supports in the decompression several types of files (such as zip or rar ect) and it has an excellent decompressing format itself (which is 7z). The graphic interface is simple and linear, although lacking a bit in colour. It is very simple to use. although overall I don't think it is on the same level as Winrar.

download

OVERALL: VERY GOOD
IZArc
With an easy-to-use interface, IZArc provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many 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 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.

IZArc automatically supports these archive formats: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BZ2, BZA, CAB, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MBF, MIM, PAK, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ,
TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO.

   It is 100% free.

download

OVERALL: EXCELLENT
Winzip
This is probably the best known application for Windows, given that the majority of the stuff downloadable from the internet is in zip format. It is now outclassed by more efficent applications such as rar. However, it is still extremely popular due to the diffusion of the archives in this format.

download
WinRAR (shareware)
Great software for archiving. Nice and colourful graphic. To create a rar archive all you need to do is a right click on your mouse on the selected application directly from Explorer. It compresses more that Winzip and it is probably the best in its genre. The registration costs between 30 and 40 Euros (depending on where you get it from). The free version that you can download can be used for an unlimeted time; however it will keep asking you to register.

download

OVERALL: VERY GOOD