This is an open debate, everyone is welcome to post here given that the post is constructive. Use some points to support your poll choice.

In other words, please do not post something like "WinRAR Rules!", "I support WinZip", "7-Zip better la!" or anything else along those lines. Warning will be given to repeat offenders.

Your judgement can be made from:
- Compression formats supported
- Compression ratio
- Cost
- User Friendliness
- User Interface
- Other features (e.g, splitting, skin support etc)

For homepage/download links of those compression software, please visit here

I used to use WinRAR, but my vote now goes to 7-zip

It might not be the fanciest piece of software in comparison to WinRAR, Winzip etc, and the formats supported are not as many as WinRAR, but still I vote for 7-Zip because of the following reasons:

- It is FREE, I can use it without having to pay a single cent and without any guilt

- 7-Zip supports popular compression formats such as .zip, .rar, .tar.gz, bzip, arj etc. Winzip on the other hand doesn't support RAR yet

- .7Z using LZMA algorithm is the most compressed format despite the relatively longer compression time, which is not my main concern. I have a 21MB folder stored with excel spreadsheets, when I compressed it to .RAR using WinRAR, the file size is 6378KB, when I compressed it to .7Z using 7-Zip the file size is only 3881KB...this is a big difference.

- Powerful Command Line support

7Zip , love it..because freeware (can be used on my father company without having risk of BSA raid) & open sourced most important
But for myself, Winrar simply more user friendly...duno why Probably I've used Winrar for quite a long time compare to 7Zip

missing the Windows XP built-in ZIP compressor and NTFS compression.

This is why the choice "Others" comes into the picture
There is only 10 poll choices allowed

You didn't put in freeware UltimateZip http://www.ultimatezip.com/ and ZipGenius http://www.zipgenius.it/index_eng.htm which can also handle multiple file formats such as RAR.

There are also other freeware (but these handle ZIP format only usually) such as..

ZipCentral http://zipcentral.iscool.net/
FreeZip http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/index.html
CAM UnZip http://www.camunzip.com/
JustZIPit http://free-backup.info/
EnZip http://website.lineone.net/~chris_m/
BigSpeed Zipper http://www.bigspeed.net/index.php?page=bszipper
BkZip http://www.bksoft.net/ (German!)

Its a Zip zip world!

As mentioned, I am only able include 10 poll choices
It is unlikely for me to add in all the minnows while dropping some of the big names such as winzip and winrar. So I don't see anything wrong with it.

I hope the discussions should be focused on what is your favourite compression software and why, instead of posting "Why this is not included?, Why that is not included?". We are talking about the best, not the rest

And always remember there is a last choice - Others (Please stated) --> I don't see anyone voted this yet either.

Ah yes...In case you didn't notice, ZipGenius is one of the choices

Oops, didn't noticed that!

Anyway, FilZip and TugZip is new to me and looks great! Thanks for the information. Currently I'm using PowerArchiver.

I Prefer WinRAR... personally

1) Firstly I think its easier to use but what do I know I havent used others besides winzip.

2) Lots or compression options like how I want to compress a particular file or split a file to different sizes. It helps because my company has a limit on email attachments so I need to split large files to smaller size.

3) Support self extracting archives with command line so I can create a self extracting .exe file that can install things quickly to a particular directory. Or execute bat files....

4) Might not be advantage for other people but most of my colleagues dont use winrar so they can't curi-curi tengok my files in case I forgot to password protect the .rar file.

5) Winrar also support the zip format so I dont need to install winzip when I want to open or create zip files for open distribution. I can also use a self extracting archive.

I think thats all for now....

Downside you need to license a copy to use Winrar its not free...

This post has been edited by aaronpang: May 28 2005, 07:38 PM

I prefer WinRar for it's compatibily and self extractig options, ie most programs come in .zip format, and usually for storing and quick extraction later, I make self-extracting ones that immediately extract the files to the right folder.

Very practical.

I wonder why no people winace as it's simple and perform really well... It's light and powerful(at least i feel so), and i think WinRar have some unstable issues that might cause some pc to crash, both of my computer unable to run normally after installing WinRar

For size i dont really matter, i use zip-ing for to pack my files into 1 files so that it's easy to distribute over the net... For some prgrams/image, it's better to use minimal compression

But only down side of winace it's that it's not a freeware.....

All coments are welcome

vote for WinRAR

WinRAR support more format if compare wit WinZip, for other me dunno also cuz havnt try others. Using WinZip, cannot unzip WinRAR files... happen during busy wit assignment pula .. haiz
Friendly use also.

I prefer WinRAR...

Alist so fast winrar can unzip all of the files I need..

I was using winzip last time but winzip can't unzip rar as some had mentioned...

so my vote goes to WinRAr

When it comes to breaking a files into smaller pieces, WinRAR is my great companion. In fact, most of the files found on newsgroup requires me to use WinRAR to unRAR the multiple splitted files.

7Zip is not bad, too since it's free and open source. Supports .deb and .rpm format. Slack, it doesn't support .ace compression.

This post has been edited by APIITian: May 30 2005, 10:00 AM

i choice winzip tough i am using winrar ....
to me winzip is more convinient

WinRAR definitely for me. It has built in .LZH decompression which is a big plus when you access a lot of Japanese game software/files. RAR support is a definitely must if you use USENET for any amount of time. The interface is straightforward and easy to use. Contextual menus help a lot.

I stopped using Winzip because its a "one-trick pony". It does ZIP well but thats all it does. If I do need to make or send a ZIP file, I'll use the windows built in zip compressor. For everything else, its WinRAR.



This post has been edited by ubvmadman: May 30 2005, 03:58 PM

Winrar......


Read the first post.

This post has been edited by shockw@ve: Jun 2 2005, 11:57 AM

for me, i use winrar. love the 1-click unzip wizard. not to mention, skin support.

Obviously winrar pwns all the other competitors because of formats supported and user friendly interface

But if you guys are going to archive large amount of big files, I would rather recommend 7zip because 7z is highly compressed and will save a lot of disk space

Get version 4.2 here
http://www.7-zip.org/

prefer winRAR, in my opinion it conpress more than winzip

if i'm not wrong