7ZIP OR WINRAR INSTALL
7ZIP OR WINRAR RAR

If you need the smallest size possible, go with 7-Zip. ZIP format can be opened on Windows, Mac, Linux and even ChromeOS without any additional software, the built-in Windows compression is the best choice for compatibility. So whether you are using Windows 7, 8 or 10, you will get the same compression ratio.Īgain, since. Plus, WinZip will set you back at least $30, so the free option makes much more sense.Īlso, the compression algorithm in Windows 7 seems to be exactly the same as in Windows 10 since the files ended up being exactly the same size. WinZip is another option, but the difference between built-in Windows compression and WinZIP is minimal. If compatibility is an issue, then I recommend using the built-in compression in Windows.

7ZIP OR WINRAR RAR

rar files will require additional software on Windows, Mac and Linux. If you are compressing data for yourself, then it doesn’t really matter which format you use.

7ZIP OR WINRAR INSTALL

In order for someone to open a 7-ZIP or WinRAR file, they will need to download and install the appropriate software on their machines first. The only issue with programs like 7-ZIP and WinRAR, both of which did the best in compression, is that they use proprietary formats that are not fully supported on other systems. So should you go out and get 7-ZIP to zip your files? It depends. 7-Zip has been around for a while and they have ranked at the very top for best compression utility on multiple third-party tests, so the numbers are not really surprising. Well, in terms of just compression ability, 7-Zip is the clear winner. In addition to the built-in Windows 7 compression, I’m also going to run the same set of data on Windows 10 to see if there is any difference between the versions of Windows.

I’m using a Windows 7 PC with Service Pack 1 and I installed the latest versions of each program as of the date of this post: 7-Zip 15.09 beta (64-bit), WinZip version 20 and WinRAR 圆4 5.30 beta 6.

In my case, I took 1.47 GBs of videos (different formats), images (RAW and other formats), documents (PDF, Office files, etc) and music files (MP3, M4A, etc) and passed them through each compression utility with default settings.įirst, let’s start with the setup I have and the versions. I don’t like just compressing images or just compressing documents because the differences end up being very small and it’s hard to choose a clear winner.

7zip or winrar