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.
v5.0 [Jun 23, 2013]
- Backend: PEA 0.44, UPX 3.09
- Code cleanup
- Bookmarks branch in navigation tree moved on first position, starts by default maximized and containing common useful locations
- Improved breadcrumb context menu, unified with refresh menu (features history menu, features entries to open in specified path the system's file explorer, command prompt, new instance of PeaZip, properties, and web search, features quick access to relevant filesystem paths (same as "Filesystem" menu top level)))
- Improved tasks wrapper (gwrap) for readability and clarity, explore input and output paths is now featured
- Improved Settings: reorganized and simplified
- Improved speed of adding items to archiving operations: by default directories' content is enumerated only on request (in layout's context menu)
- Improved tool bars, added New folder button in file manager bar and Rename in image manager
- Improved web search function for quick access to most relevant web resources
- New history menu containing recently visited pats and archives, session history and breadcrumb of current path (also in archive/extraction interface)
- System tools deduplicated and moved to context menu, always accessible, more tools available (Windows Vista and more recent) Added "Open PowerShell here" function)
- (Windows) Added quick links to user's music, pictures, and videos folders in browsing, and archiving/extraction interfaces
- (Windows) Free disk space and % displayed in standard status bar and in archiveing/axtraction interfaces
- (Windows) Improved adding multiple items from context menu functions
- Added support for displaying thumbnails of xpm, and pgm images
- Improved accessibility to various functions like bookmarks, web search, show thumbnails, open new instance, explore path
- Uniformed various menus and submenus so same groups of functions are easier to find at first sight
- Fixed: extract to new folder now ignored in drag and drop operations consistently to how most file archivers work
- Sizes of single input itmes in readable form
- 174 file extensions supported - added support to .crx Google Chrome extension, .maff Mozilla archive format, .mdf Alcohol 120 image files, and OPC files .cddx and .appv (Microsoft Application Virtualization).
