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.
v7.1 [Feb 3, 2020]
BACKEND:
- Added Brotli 1.0.7 backend
- Added Zstd 1.4.4 backend
- Pea 0.68.
CODE:
- Various fixes and improvements.
FILE MANAGER:
- Added "Type here to search in current path" hint to address bar to make this feature more esaily discoverable
- Added compression method information when browsing archives supported through 7z/p7zip backend
- Improved file rename.
- Added option to rename only files
- Improved hints about rename functions in confirmation dialogs.
- Improved management of compressed TAR files.
- Brotli, LPAQ, QUAD/BALZ/BCM, and Zstandard backed now supports previewing compressed TAR files.
- Same formats now supports option to auto open compressed TAR archive (previously applied only to formats supported through 7z/p7zip backend).
- Same formats now supports smart extraction feature.
EXTRACTION and ARCHIVING:
- Added read / write / test support for Brotli (.br) and Zstandard (.zst) files.
- Added more dictionary size options for LZMA / LZMA2.
- Added compression preset ("Add" button's dropdown menu) for ZIP, Bzip2 method, fast compression.
- Improved direct extraction from PeaZip's file browser.
- Context menu and Extract dropdown menu now features: extract all here, extract all here smart, extract all here to new folder.
- Reduced duplication of destinations in Extract dropdown menu.
- Extract all to moved to More group in context menu.
- Keyboard shortcuts:
- Extract all here Ctrl Alt Shift E.
- Extract all here smart Ctrl Alt Shift S.
- Extract all here to new folder Ctrl Alt Shift N.
- Instantaneous compression ratio % is shown while running 7z/p7zip compression tasks.
