Freeware Mission – Best Free Zip Utility

by Mike 21 July 2008 13 Comments

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My attempt to run my PC only on freeware programs, The Freeware Mission, continues! Because many of the freeware programs that I download come in archives, zip, rar, you name it, I had to get a free compression/zip utility. I was using WinRar before, let’s see which freeware alternative I chose.

I tested J-Zip, 7 Zip and TUGZip. I was trying to unpack an archive, a multiple rar archive. J-Zip couldn’t do it, said the archive was broken. 7 Zip did exactly the same thing. TUGZip opened it! After studying the list of supported file formats for each of the three I made my choice: it’s TUGZip!

Just take a look at the list of supported file formats, I was completely satisfied:

Supports ZIP, 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, BH, BZ2, CAB, CPIO, DEB, GCA, GZ, IMP, JAR, LHA (LZH), LIB, RAR, RPM, SQX, TAR, TGZ, TBZ, TAZ, YZ1 and ZOO archives.
Supports BIN, C2D, IMG, ISO and NRG disc-images.

Let me add to that that you can make self-extracting archives with it using the following formats: 7-ZIP, BH, BZ2, CAB, JAR, LHA (LZH), SQX, TAR, TGZ, YZ1 and ZIP. I’m very happy I found this freeware program, my compressing and unpacking is in good hands now. You can download TUGZip from here, it’s free!

My Evaluation	9
Operating System	Windows All
Size	3.91 MB
Author	Christian Kindahl
Version Tested	3.5.0.0

The Freeware Mission will continue! Tomorrow I’ll choose an office suite to replace Microsoft Office. Stay tuned!

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13 Comments »

Anonymous said:

My choice is IZArc – it’s free !

# 12 August 2008 at 3:08 pm

Anonymous said:

The open source program Peazip is excellent in my opinion: fast and reliable.

# 5 September 2008 at 7:27 am

Johnny Karp said:

Thanks for your suggestions, I’ll give them a try soon.

# 5 September 2008 at 10:50 am

zub said:

Funny. You use pictures of an extraction of a pirated game.

I hope your web provider is not watching

# 20 December 2008 at 2:58 pm

Johnny Karp said:

@Zub
Yes, you’re right. I don’t see what’s funny though. I downloaded and used that package just to test the various zip utility programs because some people were saying that the package can’t be extracted. That’s the whole story.

# 20 December 2008 at 6:27 pm

Bilgisayarınız İçin 72 Ücretsiz Yazılım | catlakses.com said:

[...] TUGZip – Very good free compression utility, works fine with almost any archive file format, fast and reliable. [...]

# 23 January 2009 at 3:24 pm

Das Fos said:

TUGZip is the Second Best Free Zip Utility.
IZArc is the BEST one!
Just give it a Try.

# 11 February 2009 at 8:52 pm

Johnny Karp said:

@Das Fos
IZArc has been on my waiting list for some time now, I’m going to give it a try sooner or later.

# 12 February 2009 at 10:38 am

Palo said:

ZipGenius is better, check it out : http://www.zipgenius.com/?q=node/2

# 15 February 2009 at 9:03 pm

Johnny Karp said:

@Palo
I use ZipGenius on my computer at the office because the IT department dudes didn’t find any better program… Don’t get me wrong but ZipGenius is nowhere near TugZip or IzArc or 7zip or…

# 15 February 2009 at 9:27 pm

Me said:

Id have to agree after trying a couple out. Tugzip is the best of those listed. IZarc is far too overated and Im not sure why its always mentioned compared to all the other choices. Tugzip or 7zip is the way to go even though i think Tugzip is no longer being developed. Theres also another newbie called Bitser which seems handy for creating archived backups

# 11 May 2009 at 10:25 am

Keith said:

This article only uses coverage of compression types and disk image types as its rating criterion, and only by listing those which TUGZip supports; it doesn’t actually make a broad comparison. TUGZip’s freeware archive competitors also support most if not all of these formats (and some others, in the case of IZArc), so the sole item in TUGZip’s favor is that it can handle a “multiple rar archive”. I don’t agree that the ability to extract a particular archive type which most of us will likely never encounter (especially if we don’t download pirated games) is a relevant criterion for choosing which archive utility is The Best.

There are so many other rating criteria. What about features? (E.g. can it extract and create encrypted archives?) What about ease of use? How does its speed and compression rations compare?

# 4 January 2010 at 12:30 am

72 Programs For A Freeware Only PC « streetvisuals said:

[...] TUGZip – Very good free compression utility, works fine with almost any archive file format, fast and reliable. [...]

# 12 June 2010 at 1:37 am