Although ZIP is now regarded as the standard unified format for archive management, it is inevitable that you’ll receive a file archived in another format that you either can’t open within either Windows or Mac, or isn’t supported by your existing management tool.
There are plenty of alternatives available on the market, many of them free. PeaZip is one of the better and more popular archive management tools. As well as supporting the standard ZIP format, it also enables you to create archives using the newer 7z format, which main advantage is to save additional space. Archives in the 7z format can be up to 30% better compressed than ZIP and also much quicker to open on a slow computer.
PeaZip will also enable you to open an archive in just about every other format, including RAR. It doesn’t support the Mac-only Stuffit (.sit or .sitx) format, however, which is still in use, so you’ll need the free Stuffit expander to manage these archives.
PeaZip is a simple well-designed archive management tool for both Windows and Linux computers. There is a portable version which you can take on the road.
Verdict:
Powerful manager that enables you to open, save and create most archive formats
Changelog
What's new in 7.8.0 (see the changelog for release information)?
- (Linux) Alternative Qt5 build is now available as portable package
- If a setting requires to restart PeaZip (localization, system integration, change work folder) it is told in the hint text for the item
Various fixes and improvements
- (Windows) Drag&drop now allows to drag-extract files directly to other applications, previoulsy it was possible to drag-extract to the system only
- Righclicking an element on the breadcrumb it is now possible to use context menu functions on it - e.g. display properties, open the path in system's file explorer, open command prompt here, etc
- Interactive extraction option (checked by default on Windows) enables two-step extraction for all archive types supported through 7z/p7zip: content is extracted to a fresh folder and then moved to actual output destination with standard system's calls.
- When interactive extraction is used, all unneeded levels of directory nesting are removed, and conflicts with existing files are prompted interactively to user.
- Unchecking the option, it is possible to perform single-step extraction as in previous versions, with policy based directives to resolve naming conflicts without needing user interaction (recommended when creating scripts).
- It is now possible to set custom extensions for "Extract everything for" in Options > Settings > Archive manager, Extract group
- It is now possible to replace archive extension with a custom extension from archiving screen, Advanced tab
- In res/presets/custom directory are provided some pre built compression settings for comic book archive formats which uses the new custom extension feature
- Priority for archiving and extraction tasks can now be permanently set from Options > Settings > General, Tasks priority
(Windows 7+) Global progress is shown in application's icon in taskbar
Your Comments & Opinion
Ditch the ZIP format and move your archives to the more impressive 7Z
Open, edit and create just about any archive using this powerful manager
Open, create and share your archives using this comprehensive commercial archive manager
The latest WinRAR release adds an improved RAR format
RAR for Linux release adds an improved RAR format
Unpack multiple archive files with ease
A free extraction tool to decompress RAR archives
Quickly turn a collection of files or ZIP archive in to a self-extracting installer
A free and feature-packed genealogy tool
A free and feature-packed genealogy tool
Cut-down version of Google Chrome with some security extras
The writing tool designed with serious writing in mind
The writing tool designed with serious writing in mind comes to Windows