I’ve been a big fan of the open source 7-Zip application, and it has served me well over the last few years. Today, however, I came across a new program called PeaZip that looks like it is just as nice, and the great news is that it works on both Windows and Linux.
As you would expect it supports all of the major file formats that the competition does including:
- Create & extract: 7Z, ARC, BZ2, GZ, PAQ/LPAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, TAR, UPX, ZIP
- Extract only: ACE, ARJ, CAB, DEB, ISO, LHA, RAR, RPM, XPI
When it comes to file extraction utilities it’s hard for each of them to distinguish themselves. They always seem to have the same features, and support all of the same formats. For the most part PeaZip falls within that category, but it does one thing that I really like. During the setup process it asks you which commands you’d like to have added directly to the Context menu, and which ones you’d like placed in the Send To menu:
The option(s) you choose to put in the Context menu will be available without needing to navigate into a menu, which means you should only place the commands you’ll use the most there. The ones you won’t use as frequently can be put in the Send To menu where it won’t clutter up the Context menu:
If you like customizing the file extraction options in the Context menu I’d highly recommend checking out PeaZip. There’s also a portable version available for those of you who just want to try it out, but you must use the installable version if you want to add the context menu entries.
The context menu configuration IS quite nice. Still, are there NO free apps which can create RAR archives? Seems the only option is to have WinRAR and some-other-zipper or use only WinRAR.
RAR is a proprietary format, its license forbid to create other RAR compressors.
That cannot happen with open source formats, that’s why I prefer open formats like 7Z to close ones like RAR.
I used PeaZip before on WinXP, it very nice tool but I prefer ZipGenius. Which is also free and it really integrate into WinXP very well.
I am able to create RAR archives with FileRoller on my Ubuntu systems. You can add that function by searching for rar in the Add and Remove. :)
I wonder what the saturation point is on creating new zip applications? Obviously we haven’t reached it yet. :roll:
IZArc Archiver here. Similar context menu, handles far more formats.
I’ve tried that program some time ago, and I find quite annoying the lack of unicode support. I think that’s because it is written in freepascal. I’ve had also problems with unicode with IZArc. The only program that seems to work perfectly with that files is 7-zip.
iv’e tried it, but i prefer alzip!
@ Transcontinental
Program’s homepage says this version supports 72 different file types… I don’t know how many are supported by IZArc but 72 is quite a lot, and anyway most of my files are the same good old zip, 7z, rar and ace (with some tgz from Linux friends).
Note also that most of exotic file formats are usually ripoff of good old zip format with minimal changes.
@fearu
One of the news of this last version is Unicode support, and program come with translations too.
Why do you want create RAR archives? The difference with ZIP files in terms of size is not that big and ZIP takes less time to compress.
Back on track, I would like to ask Ryan about PeaZip’s speed. This is a rather important factor to take into account when you’re dealing with large files.
@ Felipe, in that case I missed an opportunity to close my fingertips!
My comment was referring to what I read here,
* Create & extract: 7Z, ARC, BZ2, GZ, PAQ/LPAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, TAR, UPX, ZIP
* Extract only: ACE, ARJ, CAB, DEB, ISO, LHA, RAR, RPM, XPI
If indeed PeaZip supports 72 formats, that’s far more than IZarc (something like 40 I think).
If I’m correct I believe WinRAR doesn’t allow other apps to compress files using their technology. I could be wrong, but I remember hearing that awhile back.
They added unicode support recently.
If you view their manual it lists out all of the formats they support. We just included the most popular formats that people probably care about.
It looks prettier than 7-Zip, I can tell you that much… :)
On a less positive note: these “Add to archive” links in the right-click menu really clutter up your screen. I prefer 7-Zip when it comes to that sorta stuff. At least 7-Zip puts these links in a submenu.
And what’s up with these pluses and minuses? Fortunately, you can rename every “Send to” item by typing ‘sendto’ in the Start > Run dialog.
Pieter, it is subjective. I prefer having a few entries right in context menu rather than having to open a submenu like for 7-Zip.
I like PeaZip’s way: only few basic entries in the context menu and a lot of options in the Sendto menu (which functionally works exactly as 7-Zip submenu, so where is the problem?)
Like I said, this is just subjective, you don’t like it, I do.
You can stick them all in the Send To menu if you want. That’s what’s so great.
A plus represents a compression/archive command, and a minus represents an extraction command. Makes it easy to pinpoint which ones are used for compressing and which ones are used for extracting. I actually like that it includes those symbols… I have to think less when looking for the commands.
Don’t seem to be unicode support, I’m using latest version 2.4, but cannot see Chinese or Japanese characters in filename list.
Huh, I know they had it in the changelog a little while ago. I wonder if there was some issue with it and had to pull the support.
2.7 is out, [peazip.sourceforge.net]
PeaZip has moved to [peazip.org]
PeaZip 4.0 was published some days ago, on [peazip.org]
Thanks Jurl – I’m taking a look at it.