Five easy-to-use archiving/compression tools

By Jack Wallen July 18, 2012, 1:17 AM PDT

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Five easy-to-use archiving/compression tools

Introduction

ntNOTE: If you’d prefer to view this information as a blog post, check out this entry in our Five Apps blog.

ntMost platforms have their own built-in tools for archiving and compressing. But in some cases, those tools aren’t enough. So it’s good to know that there are other applications to pick up the slack. Let’s dive in and examine several of these, so you can enjoy an alternative archiving and/or compression tool.

ntPhoto: iStockphoto.com/paparazzit

7-Zip

nt7-Zip is one of the best of the free archiving/compression tools available across platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac). Not only is 7-Zip free, it’s also open source and offers every feature you could want.

PeaZip

ntPeaZip is another free tool that offers plenty of features and an easy-to-use GUI. It supports more than 150 file formats. PeaZip also offers strong encryption, two-factor authentication, an encrypted password manager, secure deletion, a duplicate finder, the ability to save backup scripts, and much more.

PeaZip

ntOnce you’ve installed it, you’ll notice seamless Explorer integration. PeaZip actually borrows some of the technology from 7 Zip.

WinRAR

ntWinRAR is the only non-free tool in this gallery. This particular archiving application will set you back around $21.00 USD per license (with breaks for bulk licensing purchases). See this page for more details.

File Roller

ntFile Roller is the official archiving tool for the GNOME desktop. It supports numerous formats, has a great GUI, integrates into the Nautlius file manager, and can even work with ISO images and installation packages (such as .rpm and .deb).

File Roller

ntThis manager is free and comes preinstalled on any GNOME-based Linux distribution.

Ark

ntArk is the default archiving tool for the KDE destkop. With Ark, archives can be viewed, extracted, created, and modified. Ark can handle numerous formats, such as tar, gzip, bzip2, zip, rar, and lha.

Ark

ntArk offers seamless integration with the default KDE file manager, Konqueror. (Just install the Konqueror Integration plugin available in the kdeaddons package.)

By Jack Wallen

Jack Wallen is an award-winning writer for TechRepublic, The New Stack, and Linux New Media. He's covered a variety of topics for over twenty years and is an avid promoter of open source. For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website jackwallen.

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