7-Zip

7-Zip is a file compression and archiving utility that supports a wide variety of formats. While the name would suggest that it works with seven different types of archives, due to similarities between standards it might actually be able to do much more.

The 7z format is named for the utility, which supports it flawlessly. You might have noticed that an increasingly large percentage of archives available on download sites end with the .7z extension. If you haven't been able to open these, then installing the 7-Zip archiving utility is all you have to do to get access to all the information stored within.

You've probably seen quite a few archives stored in the RAR format, which 7-Zip should also be able to reassemble for you. That means you won't need to install a separate RAR expansion utility.

Those who download archives from the web on a fairly regular basis may come across CBZ archives, which are comic books stored in the traditional DEFLATE format. By using 7-Zip, you can break these apart into their component files or assemble huge batches of images into your own books for use with an eReader that supports this format.

Naturally, that means you can also work with traditional ZIP files as well. While Windows does include support for these archives, it's convenient to have a dedicated tool that handles every type of archive you might run into. Many people use the ZIP format to send files online, so you'll be pleased to know that 7-Zip can normally compress ZIP archives more tightly than most other utilities.

If you value performance over compression, then you can adjust the solid block size and the total token dictionary measurement for each archive you create. This is a very powerful feature that's made even more powerful by 7-Zip's support for command line arguments.

Since all of the app's defaults work perfectly fine, you shouldn't ever have to adjust these options. In fact, an overwhelming majority of people will probably never have a reason to even look at 7-Zip's properties sheet. However, power users are going to be very pleased with the advanced functions it comes with.

The package also comes with a number of other tools that may not have as much utility. An integrated file manager, for instance, probably won't be of much use since the app features a simple context menu integration option that's installed by default. If you're used to right clicking on a file and selecting the add to compressed folder option, then using 7-Zip won't be any more complicated for you than this.

That being said, file system technicians and some other types of specialists might use these advanced features to explore the interior workings of any NTFS volume. When you format a partition with the NTFS format, Windows adds a few hidden files in the root directory of said partition. The 7-Zip utility will actually let you see these.

Granted, this also means that users who don't have experience with advanced file system manipulation could actually screw up a drive using these features. Chances are that most people won't bother exploring them or running 7-Zip as an administrator anyway, so there shouldn't be any issues. Those who just want to extract files and explore compressed folders can work with the program with nearly no chance of causing any damage at all.

Best of all, it's quite portable and should help you read archives created by people who use other operating systems. Say you have a friend who owns an Apple Macintosh computer and tries to send you compressed folders that end with the .tar.gz extension. Just right click on them and allow 7-Zip to do the rest.

The same goes for .txz and .tb2 archives created by GNU/Linux users. In fact, Windows users could even create their own archives in any of these formats and send them over to friends they have that use these systems.

That makes it attractive for developers who have to upload source code in a specific format. It should also prove very useful to those who download music, movies and games on a regular basis since the app will be able to extract all of these things.

Some people distribute comic books and complete manga stories in something called CBR format, which is essentially an image archive compressed with the RAR format. Once again, 7-Zip shouldn't have any problem working with these.

When you first install the app, you may want to change a few of the file associations and icons that the software makes. Fortunately, 7-Zip gives you the option to do that. As soon as you have everything working, you'll want to start exploring the .7z format itself.

If you're used to zipping files up before you put them on your USB hard drive, then you're in for a treat because the .7z can save a great deal of disk space over the more traditional ZIP one. You might notice that some archives come out to less than half the amount of space that they currently are.

A built-in password system helps to prevent unauthorized access. While it could theoretically get cracked into, it should be more than strong enough to stop even a relatively sophisticated institutional brute force attack.

Text files, video game ROMs, software executables and bitmap images are among those types of objects that 7-Zip can compress the best. If you're building archives out of just these and a few other types of files, then you should find that the archives the app produces is a literal fraction of the original size.

Those who might be low on disk space or have a large number of images stored in their photos folder could also use 7-Zip to push all of these files into a single archive. Cutting down on the amount of file slack in this way should save quite a bit of space in its own right.