Data compression is such an everyday activity that many of us take it for granted. In fact, it surrounds us: every installation package with new program and many file formats, such as JPEG for photos and various formats for video and audio, rely on compression to save storage space or reduce the time and cost of data transfer.

For the first time, users encounter compression when they have to work under certain restrictions when processing files. For example, the presence of one file instead of many is often an important criterion when sending it via e-mail or via FTP.

But don't forget that compression and decompression take time, and to ensure that waiting for these processes to complete does not seem like agony, you need to have a certain amount of processing power (especially when using encryption).

We received a lot of questions from readers about the compression tools used (archivers). Therefore, today we will look at 4 different archivers: 7-Zip, FreeArc, WinRAR and WinZip and compare the compression ratios and compression times they show. Which one will be the best?

There are a lot various programs for saving, compressing and archiving data various methods. These programs not only reduce file size and consolidate files into a single archive, but also perform virus scanning and even perform content testing to avoid unwanted compression of files that are already compressed, split, encrypted, etc.

Regardless of the features included in your favorite archivers, comparing compression programs usually comes down to their performance and compression efficiency. It is important to understand that not only a high compression ratio, obtained in as many file types as possible, is desirable, but also processing speed.

Most tools can work with at least the popular ZIP format, and sometimes even RAR and/or LZH. Some tools are more efficient and offer greater flexibility. But which format matters most when it comes to file compression and processing time? Do all tools offer similar performance when working with a common format like ZIP?

We couldn't run tests on all the available archivers, so we decided to focus on some of the most popular ones, chosen by us based on the majority of reader questions. Our choice fell on WinRAR and WinZip, which, without any question, occupy a dominant position. Our additional choices were 7-Zip and FreeArc. Let's see what all these archivers can do.

Archiving capabilities

Application and Compatibility

What do you need for compression or archiving? For small files that need to be sent by mail, you probably need a high compression ratio.

Commercial applications in particular offer high level integration with the operating system, giving access to its capabilities via right-click in Windows Explorer.

Stick with ZIP or RAR if you want to send data to people you don't know very well. Most people are able to open and extract files from ZIP or RAR. However, if you use a different format, you run the risk that problems may arise “at the other end” with unpacking your archive.

Compression, speed and data types

Increased compression helps reduce file sizes, but it also takes much longer. Modern applications are typically thread-optimized, meaning they take advantage of multi-core processors. However, there are few solutions that still work with only one processor core. This is one of the most compelling reasons why we decided to write this article. After years of using WinZip as our primary program, we've come to think it's stupid to pay $30 for a program that has fewer features than the free alternatives.

It's important to understand that some types of files, such as documents, can be compressed quite well, while other files should only be archived for convenient storage. For example, JPEG images, setup files programs and other similar data are already compressed and therefore should not be expected to be compressed again.

Compression speed is not a major factor if you just need to package a few files and send them via email. Most likely, these files only take up a few megabytes and are therefore archived almost instantly. However, archiving performance becomes important if you need to compress a large amount of data for backup.

For simple example: Packing 50GB of information into a single file with minimal compression takes almost as much time as copying. However, the process can take hours if you are trying to get an archive with the smallest possible size.

Multi-volume archives

The nature of storage media and email accounts sometimes makes it necessary to limit file sizes. Mail accounts are often limited to 10-20MB of data per message, and media (like CDs, DVDs and even Blu-ray discs) have limited capacities. In these cases, it may be necessary to create multi-volume archives, the sizes of which you can set yourself. These multi-volume archives are supported by many modern archiving programs, although not all. If this feature is important to you, then it is worth checking whether the archiver you choose supports it.

Passwords and encryption

The best way to protect archives from unauthorized access to the information they contain is to use passwords and encryption. However, using passwords and encryption will cause data compression to take longer. On the other hand, it is this combination that provides the most effective protection.

Most archiving tools support AES encryption, and some (like 7-Zip and WinZip) already take advantage additional instructions processors that Intel company began implementing Core i5 processors on its processors. As a result, encryption on such processors in the future will have a noticeably less impact on the entire archiving process as a whole, unless, of course, your archiving tool supports AES-NI. At the same time, for owners AMD platforms It is only a matter of time before such processor instruction sets appear.

Several restrictions

There are a small number of limitations, particularly due to large file sizes and older containers. Thus, the ZIP 2.0 specifications support separate files up to 2GB in size.

The problem may be the one you are using. file system. In particular, FAT32 systems on old Windows do not allow you to create files larger than 4GB. Larger archives will require NTFS.

Finally, modern archiving tools can consume large amounts of data. random access memory. Therefore, better performance from them can be achieved on computers that do not suffer from a lack of it.

7-Zip 9.1 Beta and FreeArc 0.60

7-Zip 9.1 Beta

7-Zip is a free archiving tool. The program can unpack various archive formats, but can only pack into a limited set of formats. According to the 7-Zip website, the program compresses 2-10% better in ZIP than competitive programs. The site hints that 7-Zip's ZIP compression ratio is higher than its analogues.

However, 7-Zip's real strength is its native 7z format. This open architecture allows for 256-bit AES encryption, which owners of the new Clarkdale Core i5 processors can take advantage of with six hardware instructions for AES encryption and decryption. AES is supported for 7z and ZIP formats.

However, using 7z, you probably won't see much of a performance gain, despite the new instructions. This is because the 7z algorithm is already so heavy that hardware acceleration AES becomes less important. Some people even discussed this topic with Intel employees, and company employees confirmed everything.

Overall, 7-Zip is not as common as the other tools in this article. However, the archives of this utility are still supported by other archivers, such as IZArc, PowerArchiver, TUGZip and WinRAR. Typically, 7-Zip uses LZMA (LZ77) compression, but other algorithms can also be used. LZMA supports dictionaries of various sizes (up to 4GB on 64-bit OS).

7-Zip 9.1 beta also supports the improved LZMA2 algorithm. The program allows you to work both from the command line and from the Windows graphical interface, which includes its own file manager. Moreover, the program is available in 74 languages ​​and works with all Windows, from Windows 98 to Windows 7.

Unlike WinZip, 7-Zip is fully thread-optimized and can therefore take advantage of multi-core processors.

Fast and free archiver FreeArc, according to the official website, works 1.5-3 times faster than the best compression programs at equal compression ratios (a hint probably goes to WinZip and other popular products).

FreeArc works with both the command line and the GUI. And, according to the site, the utility has an impressive list of benefits. In particular, depending on the file type, the program can switch between different compression algorithms. On the one hand, this helps in maximizing the compression ratio, and on the other hand, it binds the user to FreeArc, because other compression tools are unlikely to be able to understand and decompress your archives.

In total, FreeArc supports 11 compression algorithms. Remember, however, that this is not necessarily about compression itself. Perhaps the program can only read and unpack 11 types of archives. FreeArc also supports the integration of external programs for data compression and filtering.

The program can detect repetitions (REP - in the range up to 1GB), remove repetitions in text (LZP) and also has an executable file preprocessor (BCJ). In addition, FreeArc sorts files to take maximum advantage of the above features. IN fast modes compression for texts the program automatically uses GRZIP, while binary files uses Tornado.

To protect your archives, FreeArc supports encryption. In particular, the program supports AES, Blowfish, Twofish and Serpent. Self-extracting archives, merges, recompressions, and comments are supported. However, not all file attributes are saved in the archive. Moreover, a 64-bit version of FreeArc has not yet been released, and there is no support for multi-volume archives yet either. Fortunately, self-extracting archives and the ability to create simple installers are still included.

FreeArc is suitable for anyone who doesn't mind spending a little time customizing archiving solutions to suit her or his environment. Version 0.7, which should be released by the time this article is published, should make the program as easy to use as WinRAR. Later, the developers want to add full support for RAR and 7z formats to FreeArc.

WinRAR 3.92 and WinZip 14

WinRAR from RAR Labs is a paid solution. We have been using WinRAR as a key evaluation tool for quite some time because... it is one of the most popular archivers that supports multithreading. In this article we used WinRAR version 3.92.

WinRAR fully supports RAR and ZIP archives and can decompress CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7z and Z files. Along with other tools in this article, WinRAR supports both command line, and working with GUI. The program also supports self-extracting archives and can encrypt data with 128-bit AES.

WinRAR comes with a wizard assistant, which is a nice addition for ordinary users. In this review, WinRAR is the only program that supports the creation of multi-volume archives. This may not seem particularly important, but multi-volume archives are very useful if you need to send a large amount of data via email with a very limited message size. In this case, WinRAR can split the data into more appropriately sized pieces. In addition, there are a lot of addons for WinRAR that allow you to customize and optimize the program for various operating systems.

Since version 3.91, WinRAR also supports 7z format with LZMA2 (extract only). This format usually gives excellent results in terms of performance. For 32 and 64 bit versions operating systems There are different versions of WinRAR (with minor differences). The program currently supports 15 languages ​​and even supports its own themes.

And finally, the last but not least archiver in this review is WinZip. This is the most popular paid archiving tool, and in our testing it performed in two different ways. On the one hand, WinZip integrates well into the operating system and is very easy to use. Version 14 of WinZip is probably what you need when running Windows Vista or 7. On the other hand, WinZip still hasn't learned how to balance the load across multiple CPU cores, and so it's damn slow when using LZMA or the Best Method option. which selects the best compression algorithm for specific file types. Even on regular files ZIP, WinZip's performance is only average.

WinZip can create three different types of archives: ZIP, ZIPX and LHA. However, the program can read much more, including RAR, 7z, BZ2, JAR, image files (IMG, ISO) and CAB. At frequent work with large ZIP files, you'll be glad to hear that WinZip 14 can handle ZIP archives larger than 4GB.

To protect archives, the program allows you to use 128 or 256-bit AES encryption. The auto-cleaning feature will ensure that files temporarily extracted from encrypted archives are destroyed after use. WinZip 14 also supports Intel AES-NI functionality, which is available on Clarkdale Core processors i5 (and Gulftown Core i7-980X).

It is worth emphasizing that we could not try out all the capabilities of the WinZip archiver, because... their list is impressively long. Even just the support of an archiver new Windows 7 is very comprehensive. For example, it supports gestures on touch screens, supports preview and even so-called jump lists to facilitate access to its capabilities and ZIP files. Latest version The archiver also supports photo resizing. Yes, other tools also offer integration with the operating system, but not such an extensive set of capabilities. In particular, WinZip supports multi-volume archives, has an integrated FTP client that allows you to upload backup archives (Backup and Pro versions), supports the command line and even creates self-extracting archives.

At the beginning of March, the fourth version of the WinRAR archiver was released, and at the end of last year its closest competitor 7-Zip also pleased us with the next release. Both programs have versions for x64 configuration, which allows for a full comparison. It would also be a good idea to participate in the evaluation of other programs to obtain objective test results. Testing was carried out on a computer with a motherboard feeGigabyte, modelG31M-S2L, processorIntelC2D E8400, four gigabytesDDR2 andGF9500GT installed by OSWindows 7 x64. For evaluation, packaging time and archive size were measured. The source file was a folder containing a video file (AVI), documents (DOCX), executive file (EXE) and music (MP3). The total folder size is 296,497,755 bytes. We chose for testing - WinRAR 4.0, 7-Zip 9.20 (both for x64 and x32) and console versions ACE32,ARJ32,PKZIP And UHRC. Versions of the latter were released in the period of three to five previous years.

Version WinRAR supplemented new opportunity Organize passwords, this should help to use large quantity passwords. Passwords are stored in clear text. Added feature Show password in the input line. The unpacking speed is claimed to increase by almost one third. In addition to the benefits of past versions, viewing Blu-ray images ISO format and Unicode file names add ease of use.

In its turn 7- Zip It is freely distributed, has good compression and supports as many formats as its competitor. In addition, there is a console version of the program and a file manager.

The first measurements were made with 32-bit versions of all tested archivers. The results of the operation time in seconds are summarized in the diagrams below for clarity.

But the archiver is used not so much for speed as for archiving files. To compare not only time, but also the degree of compression, the results are summarized in a table. The results for x64 versions are highlighted separately. All measurements were taken at default settings.

Now we can summarize. Really unpacking speed WinRAR 4 pleasantly striking, despite the slight difference in archive size from 7- Zip. I would like to draw your attention to the program UHRC (WinUHA), it has not been updated since 2005, but to this day it is not inferior to the leaders in terms of compression. Not too far behind is another long-lived PKZIP, and it also has a decent packaging time. In general, if you need to pack well, you will have to wait. Therefore, we leave the conclusions to the user; undoubtedly, when choosing an archiver, you need to evaluate the specific task being solved.

Today we tested popular archivers. The goal is to find a free alternative to the WinRar archiver for office work. So, let's introduce the participants:

Archiver WinRar 4.0 x64. WinRAR is one of the most famous archivers. In addition to archiving in RAR format, the program can work with ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE 2.0, BZIP, JAR, UUE, GZIP, BZIP2 and 7-Zip archives, while it has numerous very useful features - encryption , support for continuous (solid) archives, in which the compression ratio can be 10–50% greater than with conventional compression methods, a special algorithm for compressing multimedia files, support for multi-volume archives and much more.

Archiver 7-zip 9.20 x64. High compression ratio thanks to the new 7z format with LZMA compression. Supported formats: Archiving/unzipping: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR. Unzip only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.

Archiver HaoZip 2.5 x64. The Chinese archiver Haozip will be of interest to anyone who has long wanted to legalize working with WinRAR or replace it with something worthwhile. But bad luck, the interface is unusual, and no data compression format is supported. In this case, Haozip is perfect. Firstly, its interface replicates the familiar WinRAR, and secondly, it supports compression in 7z, ZIP, TAR formats and decompression of almost all popular compression formats. Among them: RAR, ISO, UDF, ACE, UUE, CAB, Bzip2, ARJ, JAR, LZH, RPM, Z, LZMA, NSIS, DEB, MSI, CPIO, XAR and others.

Test computer: AMD Athlon X2 6000+, 4 GB RAM, Windows 7 x64 (During testing, all unnecessary programs. Antivirus stopped.)

Test set of files: 560 pcs doc format(documents contain text, tables, images) 399433728 bytes (380 MB)

Archiver	Format	Compression mode	Compression time*	Archive size*, bytes	Compression*,%
			1 min 17 sec
			1 min 20 sec
			1 min 21 sec
			1 min 2 sec
			1 min 13 sec
			3 min 44 sec
			1 min 11 sec
		unzipping
		unzipping
		unzipping
		unzipping
		unzipping
		unzipping
		unzipping
		unzipping
		unzipping

* - the lower the value, the better.

Since we did not notice any significant reduction in the archive with compression quality “normal” and “maximum”/“ultra”, we will analyze the results obtained using the example of archiving in normal mode (which is set by default).

Maximum compression up to almost 15 megabytes(!!) from the original ones 380 MB showed the LZMA algorithm (archive with 7z extension with the “Create continuous archive” mark). This quality was demonstrated by the archivers 7-zip and Hao Zip.

Fastest with archiving in Zip format coped Hao Zip in 12 sec. For 7-zip and WinRar archivers, this procedure took almost twice as long.

With Extracting files from rar, 7z, zip archives The tested archivers performed approximately the same - with a difference of 1-2 seconds.

Conclusions. In our opinion an excellent alternative paid WinRar archiver when working with electronic documents is Archiver HaoZip. It combines the familiar interface of the WinRar archiver and maximum document compression, which is especially important for companies that use mail program Lotus Notes/Domino with known restrictions on the size of attached files. , compared to WinRar, will compress documents into a zip archive twice as fast, or create a 7z archive which will be 16 times smaller than a rar archive with similar documents and in less time! We also add that the compression of *.xls files was 6%, *.rtf - 4%

P.S. The difference in time and size of the resulting archive in the "normal" and "maximum/ultra" modes in 7z format is insignificant. You should not select the “ultra” mode for archiving in zip format with the 7-zip archiver: significant time costs and an imperceptible difference in the archive size.

In 2018, the size of produced multimedia content amounts to tens of gigabytes: films and TV series in Ultra HD quality, cutting-edge games, Hi-End music. The capacity of a number of computer storage devices today reaches tens of terabytes, but handling large amounts of data, like twenty years ago, comes down to archiving.

An archiver is a program that packs files for ease of transfer and storage. In this case, the size of the resulting archive is smaller than the size of the original files separately.

The Internet rating showed that the most popular in 2018 are two archivers: WinRAR and 7Zip. Both of these utilities have gone through a decade and a half of improvements and revisions: the first versions were introduced in 1995 and 1999, respectively. Today it is impossible to say unequivocally which is better - WinRAR or 7 Zip without a comparative analysis.

What to choose: WinRAR archive or ZIP archive

The main difference between the archiver programs under consideration is the distribution method. If for full version WinRAR company RARLab requires $29, while providing 40 days of trial use, then 7Zip is initially positioned as free project open source.

The strength of WinRAR is its complete support for archive formats: RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, ACE, TAR, GZip, UUE, ISO, BZIP2, Z and 7Zip. Its free competitor is left behind in this regard.

A significant argument in the choice of 7 Zip or WinRAR is the prevalence of formats. Thus, the ZIP format is included by default in most desktop and mobile operating systems (in particular, Windows and Android). The compression process in ZIP is faster than in RAR, and the archiver of the same name claims a high degree of support for this format. At the same time, ZIP files obtained using 7Zip take up 2–10% less disk space.

RAR archives are best protected. IN ZIP format uses its own cryptographic algorithm, weaker than the 128-bit AES in the RAR format. In WinRAR, not only the file contents are available for encryption, but also its attributes: name, size, comments, etc. Information is also added to the archive to allow you to restore the damaged file.

WinRAR or 7Zip - which is better? The question comes down to the scope of application of the tools in question. If you need to quickly transfer a set of non-critical files, 7Zip is the best choice. However, in the case where the data requires reliable protection from opening and damage, the RARLab product is better suited.

If you actively exchange information on the Internet, store “heavy” files, or like to send voluminous e-mails, it is unlikely that your life can do without data archiving. The use of compression formats, for example, “7z”, “rar”, “tar”, “zip” is so common that it has outgrown the usual necessity.

Many users use these formats by inertia, even having voluminous mailboxes and the ability to send gigabytes of information in a single message. Of the two main programs on the archiver market - WinRAR or 7-Zip - which better suits the user's needs? It’s difficult to answer for a beginner, but the topic is interesting. And therefore requires deep consideration.

VinRAR: Classics of the genre

The file manager of the program can be easily “tailored” to suit you - it is customizable appearance icons and panels, the display of document properties can be adjusted. VinRAR is a shareware program. Despite this, in the basic functionality the user will find everything he might need for the first time.

So, the main advantages of WinRAR include:

1. Familiarity.
2. Good support.
3. Sufficient functionality.
4. Not a bad compression algorithm.
5. Easy to set up.

ATTENTION. Despite this, VinRAR does not break records for compression “power”. Most tests show that the program saves a minimum amount of space compared to the original documents. It is this reason that recently prompted many users to look for alternatives to the “RAR” format. One such alternative was the 7-Zip program.

7-Zip: A Worthy Opponent

At one time, 7-Zip was considered as a platform for a completely new archive format - “7z”. As numerous tests have shown, it really does offer an improved file packing algorithm. Especially - text documents and images. This is due to the structure of such files - they often contain repeating elements that can be packed not into a new block of information, but as a duplicate of an existing one. 7-Zip goes even further.

Moreover, the program is very simple. Any user can easily set it up. Support for popular formats, including "RAR", is also included. You can add a few more advantages:

1. 7-Zip is free software. It's absolutely free.
2. Improved algorithm for working with your own format.
3. Constant updates.
4. The minimum required for work (and even more).
5. Saving computer resources and overall faster work.

Let's sum it up

In the race 7Zip vs WinRAR it is difficult to give preference to one program. Especially today, when compression is done more for the purpose of organizing information. If you need a universal and powerful program, the “native” format of which is supported on almost all computers - VinRAR will serve good service. If you are used to counting space on storage media and love minimalism, 7-Zip will undoubtedly appeal to you.

Do you want to discuss information about file managers? Or maybe offer your own, less popular, but more interesting? Share information in the comments to the article and read other materials on our site!