The goal of this post is to find free alternatives to the very famous WinZip and WinRAR programs that are used to extract RAR and ZIP archives or to compress individual files or groups of files and folders to save space on the hard disk or to send heavy attachments via email . In the meantime, it is necessary to reflect on the fact that, until recently, programs such as Winzip and Winrar were very important for saving space on the physical memory, or rather, on the hard disk, of the computer. Today, buying a very large hard disk, even up to a Terabyte, has much lower costs than in the past and, with the spread of external hard disks, file archives are losing their main utility.
Furthermore, the compression of multimedia files, such as sounds, music, videos and films, does not make much sense as the archiving programs cannot compress such files and there is no space saving. However, archiving files is still widely used and is very useful, not so much for compressing as for unifying multiple files into one or for dividing a very large file into many smaller ones. The whole purpose is to encourage sharing in P2P sharing networks or to upload them to online hard drives.
READ ALSO: Open and extract RAR and ZIP files online: best 6 web applications
The two most famous programs for compression, WinZip and WinRar, are, theoretically, paid, even if they continue to work without paying them.
However, since there are similar alternatives and since a service like data compression makes no sense of being paid, I would say to uninstall both Winzip and Winrar and download one of these two exceptional programs.
1) 7-Zip is an open source software and there is no need to register or pay. 7 -zip is an excellent, fast compressor, compresses much more than Winzip and opens all archives with all known and less popular formats, also opens RAR files: 7Z, ACE, ARC, ARJ, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, MDF, MBF, NRG, PAK, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP.
2) Bandzip is another great solution among programs to open archives of all kinds, including 7Z and RAR files. Free, it does everything you can do with 7Zip, only with a prettier interface and faster.
3) PeaZip is an alternative open source software to WinZip and Winrar, for Windows and Linux.
With PeaZip you can open over 120 file and archive formats and you can also create or extract ACE, ARJ, CAB, DMG, ISO, LHA, RAR, UDF files to see what's inside. PeaZip is also portable, requires no installation and can be copied to a USB stick.
4) IZArc is a free and free program of excellent quality, which allows you to replace Winzip entirely (it does not fully replace Winrar as the RAR format would not be fully supported). It manages all the storage formats listed for 7-zip even if it does not officially support the RAR format. IZArc, also available in Italian, often opens archives even of unknown formats, repairs damaged archives where possible and has the important function of being able to convert the archive from one format to another.
To create an archive, just open an IZArc window, drag the files into it and save the archive as a name, which can also be protected with a strong 256-bit encryption algorithm.
5) B1 Free Archiver is a new, modern and powerful program to extract archives of any type, completely free of charge. The program is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and also for Android and supports Rar, 7z, Zip and Zipx archives. Easy to use, with a clear interface, it always shows a guided procedure to open the archives and to create new ones with the extension .b1 or .zip
6) In addition to one of these programs it is worthwhile, if you often download archives and compressed files from the internet, use a program to automatically extract rar zip and other compressed files .
These software can also open ISO, BIN, NRG, MDF files ... that is, the images of the CDs created by the main burning programs, although, to open images of the CDs, I strongly recommend using Daemon Tools or similar which, in addition to open the file, install a virtual cd / dvd player that will appear in My Computer and simulate, as a perfect emulator, the same behavior as the normal cd / dvd player.
In another article you can see which software to use to preview the files, inside a rar or zip file, even incomplete if it is being downloaded.
READ ALSO: Open, create and extract ZIP and RAR files on Android and iPhone / iPad
