7-Zip (featured freeware)

This series takes a look at some of the best free software available on the World Wide Web.

Compressed files are always useful. They're smaller, and you can pack many files into one archive -- making the whole folders easier to share.

As useful as they are, handling compressed archives used to be a real chore. WinZip just isn't good enough for general use, because it only supports ZIP archives.

Enter 7-Zip. A program that can handle most if not all of the most popular formats, including ZIP, RAR, TAR, and GZ.

It also has its own stunning "7z" compression format. I say stunning because of the excellent compression level it achieves. Download.com tested the 7z format to be up to 40% smaller than a ZIP equivalent. It also compares favourably to other archive formats out there.

It also has a right-click menu for quick commands on selected files. The interface is simple to use and is pretty functional. It could look a little prettier but I'm not complaining.

7-Zip is also great for editing the contents of Java Archives (JAR), Nokia Themes (NTH), and Firefox Extensions (XPI).

Rating: 9/10

Download 7-Zip here
(I almost forgot: 7-Zip is mainly available for Windows. The command-line version is available for Linux, and there are unofficial adaptations called p7zip for Mac OS X, BeOS, and DOS (more info at the download link)