7-Zip
A free, open-source file archiver with a high compression ratio
7-zip.org — this link takes you to the developer's own website.
- Version
- 26.02
- License
- Open source
- Platforms
- Windows
- Publisher
- Igor Pavlov
7-Zip is a file archiving tool built around its own 7z format, which uses LZMA and LZMA2 compression to shrink files more than older methods like PKZip or WinZip typically achieve. Beyond 7z, it can create and open ZIP, GZIP, TAR, and BZIP2 archives, and can extract from a much longer list of formats including RAR, ISO, and WIM.
The program adds itself to the Windows shell context menu, so archives can be created or extracted directly from File Explorer, and it also ships a standalone file manager and a command-line interface for scripting. Archives can be protected with AES-256 encryption in both the 7z and ZIP formats, and 7z archives can be turned into self-extracting executables that don't require 7-Zip to be installed on the recipient's machine.
It suits anyone who regularly compresses files or needs to open archive formats that Windows can't handle natively, from casual users to system administrators automating backups via the command line. Since it's entirely free and open source with no feature gating, there's no paid tier to weigh against it, though its interface is dated compared to some commercial alternatives.