EThere are many good reasons to compress a file or a group of files. First and foremost is the size issue, although with 500 GB disks on sale for €90 this is an argument which is losing importance. But there are other good reasons for using a file compression program, such as the convenience of being able to create specific containers for groups of files that need to be kept together or the security offered by encryption and the password protection of compressed archives.

7-Zip offers these features and several more, such as the creation of self-extracting archives that don’t need 7-Zip to be installed in order to use them. What’s more, it’s a free application that is distributed under an open-source licence and is also compatible with WinZip archives.

Its interface is very easy-to-use and it includes enough customization options to tailor itself to any user, without problems. The information provided about the compressed archives is also abundant, with some useful statistics that give you all the information you need to correctly identify the exact type of compressed archive that you’re working with. The option to split a large archive into several smaller ones is useful if you need to store large archives on media with a limited maximum size, such as floppy disks (virtually obsolete nowadays) or CDs and even DVDs, when the archives have really large file sizes.

7-Zip (32-bit) 4.58 Alpha 6.

Tags: Utilities //