WinZip, as evident from the name, is used to process ZIP files amongst other file archive formats. It is a Windows-based software and is not available for Mac. It is a premium software that comes with a free trial. It can also be used to unpack the contents of other file extensions like 7z, ZIPX, and TAR. It is popularly used to compress and decompress RAR and ZIP files. WinRAR is one of the most popular file compression tools developed by the developer behind the RAR file extension. Now that we know about different file archive formats, it’s about time we compare different file compression tools to help you choose the best tool out of the options we have here. However, certain operating system support caveats do exist. Moreover, it is an open-source file archive format. In our tests, we found that 7z is the best compression format owing to its high compression ratio, strong AES-256 encryption, and self-extracting capabilities. A lot depends upon the file type you want to compress and the operating system you are using. Compared to other formats, TAR can be considered as a bundle of uncompressed archive files.Ĭompression Percentage (as per our tests)Īs evident from the table, different file archive formats have different advantages as well as disadvantages. Alternatively, there are many online tools also available to extract the contents of a TAR file. There are multiple third-party tools available to open Tar files. It is a popular file archive format in Linux and Unix systems. TAR is the short form of Tape Archive which is also referred to as Tarball sometimes. TAR – Most Popular File Archive Format In Unix 7z format was the first file archive format that used LZMA. LZMA or Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm is an algorithm that is used for lossless data compression. 7z file format can be uncompressed using 7-zip or other third-party software. On the downside, it also requires additional software to uncompress the file. 7z format supports compressing files up to 16000000000 GB. 7z – A File Archive Format Offering High Compression ratioħz is an open-source file archive format that offers high compression ratio and uses LZMA as its default compression method. Most operating systems, including macOS and Windows, have in-built zip file opener software. One of the advantages of using ZIP format is that ZIP files can be opened without any external software. ZIP files, like other archive file formats, store files and folders in a compressed format.

ZIP is another popular archive format used widely on the internet. If you don’t have a RAR extractor software (more on it below), you cannot view the content contained in it. RAR files can only be opened with special software that extracts the content of the file for you to use them. You can consider a RAR file as a briefcase containing other files and folders. A file with RAR extension is a compressed file containing more than one file or folders. RAR (Roshal Archive), named after its developer Eugene Roshal, is one of the most popular file compression formats.

Winrar