Equipped with a high compression ratio (as high as 7z format via LMZA and LMZA2), 7-Zip is an open-source ZIP archiver software that is usable on any computer regardless of operating system installed from the latest to the earlier versions and without any charge at all. Majority of the source codes used by this program are on the list of GNU LGPL License. These include unRar, RAR,ZIP, ARJ, XZ, Z, TAR, WIM, BZIP2, GZIP, CAB, HFS, LZMA, NSIS, CPIO, RPM, VHD, DEB, CHM, LZH, MBR, FAT, NTFS, XAR, DMG, CramFS, ISO, MSI, SquashFS, and UDF. Technically, formats ZIP and GZIP have a ratio of 2 to 10%, 7z has high ratio from 30 to 70% plus this same format has self extracting capability while both ZIP and 7z has AES 256 encryption. Other features include windows shell, file manager, command line version, FAR manager plug-in and localizations for languages up to 79.
PowerArchiver is an archiving software that supports 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows. An advanced compression format featured in PowerArchiver is the 7-Zip. An open source format that provides open architecture and high compression ratio and is not controlled by any organization or individual. It is an open source LGPL project wherein anyone can contribute. PowerArchiver also features the Transparent Update feature for 7-Zip archives, that add or remove files. The software supports all 7zip methods, including LZMA2. PowerArchiver offers ZIP and ZIPX file format support. Full support is offered for advanced ZIPX formats like LZMA, JPEG, PPMd, BZIP2 and WAVPACK in ZIP/ZIPX. Full support is also given for ZIP formats compatible with all archivers, like the built-in Windows XP/Vista/7 ZIP reader. It offers unlimited archive, unlimited size of files contained inside the archive, and unlimited number of files that are inside archive.. It has a Multicore LZMA engine for ZIP/ZIPX and supports Unicode in ZIP. The software is fully compatible with SecureZip, which includes reading 3DES encrypted archives and ZIP/ZIPX archives that are encrypted with digital certificates.