This blog post is about using the compression software 7-Zip.
Note: This isn’t a sponsored blog post.
“Compression made easy”… I’m not referring to the inbuilt zip features on Windows. Instead referring to 7-zip the powerful open source software. I’ve used it both on Windows and Linux and without doubt it is an ‘essential’ install on a system. Why?
The ability to unpack ARJ, BZIP2, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, GZIP, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, TAR, UDF, WIM, XAR, 7z and Zip is only the beginning. Did you just notice ISO?! Also it easily handles packing 7z, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR and ZIP. All easy done with a right click of your mouse button.
For very quick compression or unpacking you can just right click on the file or folder.
Gone are the days when I used to use pkunzip in dos and try to remember the correct series of commands, then to utterly fail and have to refer to help dialog. Obviously larger hard drives, introduction of rewritable cd roms (no need these days to split a zip across 3.5 or 5.25 discs for example) and higher bandwidth took away most the requirements, but still security is a concern for any business and 7-zip makes it so easy to set passwords and encryption among other options. So for more options when required, you select ‘add to archive’ and see….
I have used other gui compression applications over the years, i.e. winzip for instance among others, but never liked them until 7-zip.
I have not used the iso option yet in 7-zip, but can imagine some find this extremely useful also. So from quick and simple powerful compression or unpacking to working with multiple formats, compression has really been made easy.