[Tarun]

IZArc is the ultimate freeware archive utility supporting many archive formats like: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO.

With a modern easy-to-use interface, IZArc provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, converting from one archive type to another, view and write comments and many more.

IZArc also has built-in multilanguage support.

Changes: IZArc Changelog
Download: IZArc 3.7 Build 1430 (3.39MB, *.exe)
Source: Lunarsoft.net

[ripken204]

how do u think it compares to winrar/7zip ?

[Tarun]

I love this software, it's far better than 7zip to me. Everything seems to work better and has a wider variety of support for compressed items. I actually switched from using 7zip all the time, to IZArc.

[tain]

Tarun, on Jan 22 2007, 10:34 PM, said:

I actually switched from using 7zip all the time, to IZArc.

I did the opposite To each his own!

[Tarun]

IZArc 3.5 was beta and had one bug that made me not use it, so far these have been ten times better.

[CoffeeFiend]

ripken204, on Jan 22 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

how do u think it compares to winrar/7zip ?

My 2 cents worth:

-obviously winrar loses on the price tag (even though it's affordable at 29$)
-IZArc supports more formats than both obviously (not that I would have a use for them...)
-7zip/IZArc shell integration is very similar (IZArc also has icons), although I find IZArc's options a little bit better (but not by much). winrar's is better than both.
-IZArc has a much nicer looking GUI than 7zip (although 7zip has some of the worst looking buttons I've ever seen, so it's not saying much - looks like a WFW 3.11 app almost; besides the icons ). I prefer the pull down menus in IZArc too. IZArc wins hands down on this one.
-7zip has more options on the "creating archive" screen (like dictionary size and such) than IZArc (not much options at all really)
-IZArc opens the full blown screen real-estate eating GUI for all operations: if you create a new archive, you see the create archive window, with the full GUI in the background (no big deal though, but still works/looks/feels different than most other compression apps).
-The progress bar when compressing is about 3x longer or so in 7zip (far nicer), and very linear. On my compression tests (using a thunderbird profile), 7zip seemed to use % of what to compress for the progress bar or such, whereas IZArc seemingly uses a set % per file to compress or such. It immediately jumped to 63% (well, in about one second) after compressing a few bytes of mostly empty files, then sat there for a while while it processed a several-MB file, and the percentage didn't increase as it was processing the file (i.e. o to 63% in 1sec, and sat @ 63% for more than 1 minute). That combined with a short progress bar wasn't nice. And there's no "time left" estimation showed or anything like that either... 7zip *TOTALLY* has the edge there.
-just noticed (right before posting) that IZArc doesn't have an option to create split archives. That's a VERY significant drawback.

File compression tests:
-using 7zip using max available compression settings in both: IZArc is slow, so very, very SLOW! I got 1m48s with 7zip compressing my thunderbird profile, and that same thing took 3m32s using IZArc! It was so much slower I thought I had done something wrong, so I tried it again, and again, and again. Time after time, I got the same results: it's about twice as slow! The compressed result is mostly the same (a 13kb difference over a several MB archive -- nothing worth making it twice as slow for sure).
-using rar: winrar took 32s for that same thunderbird profile (you have no idea how fast this feels after trying IZArc w/ 7zip!) -- more than 6x faster! Resulting file is 10% bigger than the 7zip archive created by both in previous test (small enough, and very fast -- I like!). Oh -- that's right! 7zip and IZArc can't create rar archives AT ALL! That's a VERY big problem IMO (which is why I stick to winrar mostly and I'm unlikely to switch anytime soon).
-using zip, best compression available again, same thunderbird profile: 7zip took 1m46s (more than it took to create a 7zip archive), zip file is 30% bigger than the 7zip archive. using winrar: 17 seconds wow! But zip file is even bigger - it's now 45% bigger than the 7zip archive, very fast, bug large files (sucks, but only an big issue if you use zip primarily, and for big files, I never use it, so I don't really care). IZArc: 35s - finally a format that doesn't take eternity to use with IZArc! Nicer than 7zip for times, but still twice as slow as winrar. File size is much like winrar's. Last 2 zip files are ~20% bigger than the rar archive from previous test, and all took longer to create (sucks overall).

So in short:
IZArc: better looking GUI and menus but SO VERY SLOW and can't make split archives, more format support than 7zip, if you happen to use obscure formats such as YZ1
7zip: main GUI is fugly (and did I say the icons are fugly yet?), MUCH faster than IZArc, and makes smaller files too. More advanced options when creating archives and such, FAR nicer progress bars (for it's not tiny, and it's actually linear). Better than IZArc on everything, save for the main GUI appearance which is god ugly IMO (just put some nice icons on it and change the menus a bit, and it would be better all-around)
winrar: very different. Very nice GUIs, menus, options and all (at least as good as IZArc), no support for 7zip though (use another app for this if you must), but it's the only of the 3 that can create rar archives (something I wouldn't live without), creates rar archives much faster than any of the other apps using any format, and at very reasonable file sizes (beats anything zip, not much bigger than 7zip in most cases). 29$ though.

So I stick to winrar and rar archives, except for the times where I absolutely have to create 7zip archives (for very very large files that happen to compress better with it, and must absolutely be the tiniest possible at the expense of MUCH more time to compress), where 7zip seems to be best.

< end of highly-unscientific, opinionated and heavily-biased pseudo-review />

This post has been edited by crahak: 23 January 2007 - 02:42 AM

[phkninja]

i still think tugzip is the archiver for me. To each there own. I didnt really like IZArc when i used it last, moved from it to quickzip then foung tugzip and have stuck with it ever since.

[CoffeeFiend]

phkninja, on Jan 23 2007, 04:16 AM, said:

i still think tugzip is the archiver for me. To each there own. I didnt really like IZArc when i used it last, moved from it to quickzip then foung tugzip and have stuck with it ever since.

Alright. Tried tugzip too:

-nice GUI and decent shell integration (have to manually select an option to make it into a sub-menu though)
-creating a new archive: lots of options, but all hidden under the "options" tab
-progress bar is linear when creating archives, unlike IZArc (long enough too) -- actually it has 2 progress bars if zip'ing (current file and overall progress), still no times though

-7zip ultra test, same thunderbird profile: 4m14s!!! That's even SLOWER than IZArc!!! Is this even possible? Pretty much same size as 7zip's 7z archive.
-zip test, max compression, ...: 35s. Twice as slow as winrar's (but better than 7zip/IZArc still), and same file size as the winrar generated archive (1kb diff)
-rar test, max, ...: couldn't get it to work (selected "enable RAR compression" or whatever during install). I pick rar for compression, and regardless of other settings, nothing happens when I click OK. It closes down, and that's it... No files created, no other processes, nothing! Buggy? No idea how fast (or not) it could be, or file sizes... Looks like it's not ready to replace winrar there just yet.

So in short, it looks nice too, format support is much like 7zip and IZArc, but the speed isn't stellar (slower than even IZArc for 7zip archives).

[phkninja]

you will find that zip files are usually larger than rar files. this is due to the fact that rar uses a larger dictionary for compression. most zip archivers use deflate, an open compression format, but if you use deflate64 (a trademark of pkware hence not used in freewafre apps) you will prob find these zip files are smaller.

If its down to speed i use zip or rar, if ist down to compression i use 7zip or uharc on the commandline.

I find that tugzip does what i want most of the time, which is to open most archives i download from the net and it also provides me with the ability to zip a folder if i wish (or use 7z if i dont care about speed).

Also my comparison was for two freeware apps, WinRar is commercial and also has the benefit of being written by the guy who invented RAR. Most freeware apps dont give rar creation ability because of the licence fee.

Finally i never said Tugzip was perfect but i find its better than IZarc (i prefer to take a littel longer and know what an archiver is doing than for it to give meaningless feedback while archiving slightly quicker.

Im not having a go, just pointing out to people that IZarc aint all its cracked up to be. Each to his own

[CoffeeFiend]

phkninja, on Jan 23 2007, 07:57 AM, said:

you will find that zip files are usually larger than rar files

Yes, it's always been like that. No news here. Just comparing the various sizes of the archives created regardless, as it still matters. The 7zip files were very much alike for all apps, only one app managed to create a rar archive for me so no real comparisons there, but as for zip file size, it varied quite a bit - even though it doesn't matter all that much to me, as I never use zip (pretty much always rar) anyways. I kinda felt like it was important to include in any kind of review (it's a compressing app, might be good to know how well it compresses after all!)

phkninja, on Jan 23 2007, 07:57 AM, said:

If its down to speed i use zip or rar, if ist down to compression i use 7zip or uharc on the commandline.

Yeah, that was mostly my conclusion of the "first part". I use winrar (mostly for good speed and adequate archive size), or 7zip when I must squeeze every last byte I can, at the expense of more time (doesn't happen too often though).

I might be keener on the other apps if they could create rar archives, which to me provide a better compression than zip, and at very good speeds (unlike 7zip). zip doesn't compress too well, and 7zip just takes too much time, making rar the perfect compromise IMO.

I'm not saying any of the apps are perfect or the best or anything like that (and again, I was pretty clear it's a heavily opinionated and biased pseudo-review). As for creating 7z archives, I'll stick to 7zip anyways, as it's basically twice as fast as IZArc and tugzip, and compressing with 7zip already takes far too long IMO. But overall, between compressing in rar in 17s at nearly the same size as a 7zip file, or the same thing in 7zip format using tugzip in 4m14s (basically 15x SLOWER!) the choice is pretty easy... Again, that's mainly why I stick to winrar (and since it now decompresses 7zip archives too, I have little to no need for the other archivers really)

There's nothing wrong with someone disagreeing 100% and in totality over all of my opinions though.

[dirtwarrior]

Which archiver will make cabs to be intergrated into the cd IE driver.cab and be opened during installation?

[mark]

dirtwarrior, on Jan 23 2007, 08:56 AM, said:

Which archiver will make cabs to be intergrated into the cd IE driver.cab and be opened during installation?

You will want to look at this thread here.



DL

[LLXX]

I prefer 7zip, mainly because it's a lot faster and has a better progress bar, as indicated above. I really don't care how the GUI looks, since I'm not one of those who are obsessed with the appearance -- as long as it works, and it works perfectly fine.

7zip is smaller and faster even though it does not support as many formats (although I don't need such diverse support anyway).

BTW IzArc is written in Delphi (executable is packed down to 780K, but it's actually moar liek 2.8M), which is likely the reason for it's lower performance.

7zip looks like MFC (executable is only 293K, not packed).

We can compare codec modules from each archiver for each format:
7zip: IzArc:
7z: 137K 505K
RAR: 56.5K 160K
CAB: 43.5K 57.5K

I don't think I need to elaborate.

...BTW, I use LZH/LH7 for my own archiving purposes. The compression is much better than ZIP, quite similar to RAR (sometimes better than).

[Camarade_Tux]

As far as I'm concerned, I use 7zip because
-it's free
-has high compression ratio
-more than acceptable speed : I have a dual-core laptop with 2GB RAM and I 7-Zip uses both

The only problem I see is the number of supported formats so I may also use IZArc. Thanks for the news. )

[mjnc23]

I came accross your comments in the Izarc thread as I've been researching Archive/Compression tools.
According to the info shown on the 7zip home page, it will Unpack LZH but it will not Pack.
How are you doing this? Are you using 7zip or another tool?
Thanks,
Mike

Quote

I prefer 7zip, ....
:
7zip is smaller and faster even though it does not support as many formats (although I don't need such diverse support anyway).
:
:
...BTW, I use LZH/LH7 for my own archiving purposes. The compression is much better than ZIP, quite similar to RAR (sometimes better than).

[Ludwig Von Cookie Koopa]

I do not really care about speed. All I care about is getting files compressed to the smallest I can get without multicompressing from compresser to compressor.

If this thing can do it better then 7-zip then I am sold and of course for free rather then the pop-up register/buy me Winrar.

Also on the topic can this compressor compress in multiple files for storage on smaller medium. If it can multi compress a video file and make it smaller then winrar this is something that people will start to use.