Top 5 Free Winzip Alternatives

handles compressed files like zip and rar is an essential requirement for every Windows PC. WinZip is the most popular utility for handling archive formats like zip,tar, iso etc. But the WinZip is not free and you have to pay for it for using it in your PC. Do you know that there are some good alternatives for WinZip which performs the same functions and sometimes even more? This articles list the top 5 free zipping application that can replace WinZip.

1. 7zip

7 zip is the most popular open source zipping application. 7zip may not have a very attractive GUI but it can do almost all functions of WinZip. It can open ZIP, RAR and all other popular formats, and it sports it own 7Z format that is quite good. For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by WinZip. 7zip have a powerful command line version and runs on Winows, Linux, OS X platforms. 7 zip also also in a portable version from Portableapps.com. Overall this is the best free zipping utility that can replace WinZip.

2. IZArc

IZArc is another freeware archive utility supporting many archive formats like: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO. With a more attractive user interface than 7zip, IZArc provides support for all most all compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It supports easy drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, converting from one archive type to another, view and write comments and many more. IZArc comes with a build-in multi language support.

3. Peazip

PeaZip is a file manager and file archiver for Microsoft Windows and GNU/Linux.[6] It supports its native PEA archive format (featuring compression, multi volume split and flexible authenticated encryption and integrity check schemes) and other mainstream formats, with special focus on handling open formats. Other notable features of the program includes archive conversion, file splitting and joining, secure file deletion, byte-to-byte file comparison, archive encryption, checksum/hash files, system benchmarking, random passwords/keyfiles generation, and integration in the Windows Explorer context menu. In addition, the program’s user interface (including icons and color scheme) can be customized. Along with more popular and general-purpose archive formats like 7z, Tar, ZIP etc., PeaZip
supports the PAQ and LPAQ formats.

4. TUGZip

TUGZip is a powerful award-winning freeware archiving utility for Windows that provides support for a wide range of compressed, encoded and disc-image files, as well as very powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. It supports ZIP, 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, BH, BZ2, CAB, CPIO, DEB, GCA, GZ, IMP, JAR, LHA (LZH), LIB, RAR, RPM, SQX, TAR, TGZ, TBZ, TAZ, YZ1, and ZOO archives. included comes an SFX-tool to create self-extracting archives and an additional scripting tool to simplify automated backups. Additional features include support for Zip64 algorithm, built-in encryption using multiple algorithms (Blowfish, DES, Triple DES and Rijndael). It supports multi-volume archives, creation of self-extracting archives and password protection. With six different algorithms, TUGZip has very powerful password protection. TUGZip will also easily integrate with your Outlook
client and virus scanner.

5. DropZip

When you install DropZip, it automatically adds an icon to the Quick Launch toolbar. Drag ZIP or RAR files onto the programs icon, and DropZip quickly decompresses them. The program can zip folders too, although it only handles one at a time. This is not designed to be a replacement for your normal ZIP or RAR programs; instead, it is designed for convenience when you need to quickly unzip or unrar something.