Considered to be the third most widely used and best reputed file compression software, PeaZip is actually at the very top of the open-source/free file compression software list. This tool can read and extract nearly all existing archive file formats and create new compressed files both in its own format (PEA) and in some of the most common ones, ZIP and 7Z included.
Why PeaZip appears below WinZip and WinRAR on the above-mentioned list is simply beyond me. Those two not only ask for a license fee to unleash their full potential, but they also lack the functionality that PeaZip offers you for free. They are all secure, efficient, and reliable, but, amazingly, some users still prefer to pay for roughly the same functions they could enjoy free of charge. If curious, you can take a look at some of the benchmark tests available, and you’ll find that PeaZip can compress and decompress a ZIP file faster than WinZip itself...
PeaZip has been around since 2006, and it is considered by experts to be the file compression tool with the best file support rate. It is, by far, the program that can read and open more archive formats – over 150, a figure that no paid or free competitor can beat. It can also create ZIP, 7Z, ARC, TAR, and WIM archives (among others), and offers you its own high-quality compression algorithm and format, PEA, with AES256 EAX authenticated encryption. All the most highly rated encryption standards are supported for 7Z, ZIP, ARC, and PEA files, and even for RAR if it happens to be installed on your system. And the great thing is that being an open-source development, PeaZip improves its numbers on every iteration, especially regarding processing speeds and RAM usage.
What I love about PeaZip is that on top of performing as the high-end compression tool that it is, it comes with a plethora of other utilities. And I’m not referring just to PeaUtils, useful as this set of tools is, but to its archive converter, its password manager, its secure random password creator, its archive analyzer, its duplicate file finder, its file splitter and joiner, etc. The list is too long to reproduce here, so – being a free tool – I’ll leave the rest for you to discover.
PeaZip is, undoubtedly, everything you need to open and create archive files with the best compression algorithms and the highest level of security. And if that is not enough to make you download and install it on your desktop, think of the wealth of other utilities and features that come with it at no cost whatsoever.
v4.2
FILE MANAGER
Immersive mode for file browser (full screen, no window border), toggle with Ctrl F11 (option is volatile, not saved in configuration, it is just meant for enhancing browsing space on request)
Improved custom applications menus
allows 8 more applications, links or scripts
automatically detects recent AVG versions, Microsoft Security Essentials, Google Chrome
Improved thumbnail viewer
does not rebuild thumbnails when sorting
free memory changing small/large icon size
Fixed: (Windows) browsing computer's root may fail at application startup
Fixed: (Windows) loading list of objects from system context menu may not work under some conditions, only the first time application runs in a session
Fixed: descending sorting is now remembered
Fixed: correct size is now reported in status bar for selected items over 2GB
Various minor fixes and improvements
EXTRACTION and ARCHIVING
ARC format, now archiving relative paths by default, optionally absolute paths can be stored (advanced options tab in archive creation interface)
More information dispayed in report tab during operation: completed strings are displayed
WINDOWS INSTALLER
Reduce packages size
some superseeded formats (lpaq1/5, paq8f/jd/l) moved to external plugin
uses uncompressed Winodws icons (package compression is more efficient)
Mall Creeps
