For compression most of the people use Winrar and Winzip and after their trial period is over they pay for it.As a free software enthusiast I found 7-Zip software for compressing files.Its works superbly and most important its absolutely free of cost.
It supports .zip , .rar and .7z compression files. .7z compression is sometimes far better than .zip files when you use it on PDF files(just give it a try). I tested on some of the PDF files which had lot of scanned content and the compression level was awesome more than 20-30% of .zip file .
7-Zip works in Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista. Command line version of 7-Zip can be used in Linux via Wine program.
Some features of the software are:
· 7-Zip is free software distributed under the GNU LGPL
· Highest compression ratio in new 7z format format
· Supported formats: 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB
· For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
· Self-extracting capability for 7z format
· Integration with Windows Shell
· Powerful File Manager
· Powerful command line version
· Plugin for FAR Manager
· Localizations for 40 languages
Download 7-Zip from here for x32 version
Download from here for x64 version
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