Downloads

7-Zip Portable

Oct 21, 2008

The Windows Compressed Folder wizard is enough to quickly create or extract a set of compressed files but more advanced tasks need something a little more capable.

7-Zip is an open source compression utility that can work with a wider variety of compressed file formats and has a better interface.

This download is a modified version of 7-Zip that works as a Portable App. It is installed into a folder without touching any others or the Registry. As this folder can be put on a USB key, it can then be used on any Windows computer that the key is plugged into. This download can also be used to install 7-Zip into the Portable Apps menu. That's why it has a double file extension, which might otherwise indicate a security problem.

Apart from this it is identical to the standard version of 7-Zip. It can compress files into the Zip, Gzip, Bzip2 and Tar formats as well as its own format called 7z. It can uncompress files for more formats including RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS.

Finally, 7-Zip claims to be able to compress files with a compression ratio that is 2-10 per cent better than the ratios provided by PKZip and WinZip.