I no longer support using IZarc.
For a very long time, I used IZarc for archives of all sorts. Unfortunately, they have made some interesting choices to fund their developments by including adware bundled with their software. You can opt out of these during the installer, but the amount of trickery in doing so exceeds the benefits of the program.
I now suggest 7-Zip as a do-all, end-all to most archive formats.
See my new review for 7-Zip here:
https://zylblog.com/2014/06/7-zip/
Q: How do I open a 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, or ZOO file?
A: In order to open most of these file types, you must have an archive program.
Archive programs will usually not only open these types of files, but will allow you to create them.
One archive program that I suggest using is IZarc.
Download/read about here:
http://www.filehippo.com/download_izarc/
We did a review on IZarc a while back, check it out
Other archive programs may work better on some systems. If you have a problem using IZarc, see a list of alternatives here:
http://www.filehippo.com/software/compression/
Other note:
Windows ME, 2000, 2003, XP, and Vista can all read .ZIP files, as they have their own built in ZIP Archive program.
Why would I use an archive?
Archives are usually used for two reasons:
They keep entire groups of folders and files in one file, so they can be downloaded and shared easily.
Archives often contain compression features, allowing you to make grouped files smaller than they originally were.
Are there any cons from using an Archive?
The two biggest cons of using archives for storage are:
Being able to open it on all computers. Not all computers have archive software on them. Most operating systems handle .ZIP archives, but many will not handle archives like .RAR, or .ISO (Linux being an exception)
Using compression with archives can take time. The more you compress a file, the longer it will take to compress it in the first place, and the longer it will take for the next person to decompress it.
