Most people never open their compression tool at all. They right-click a folder, pick “Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder,” and move on. That works until you need to split a 4 GB archive, encrypt something before emailing it, or deal with a .7z file someone sent you that Windows refuses to touch.
7-Zip is the obvious answer, and it is genuinely good. But it is not the only free option, and in a few areas it is not the best one. Here is what else is worth installing, what each tool actually does well, and where the annoyances hide.
First, a note on what “free” means here
Compression tools are a category where free usually means actually free. No subscriptions, no nag popups asking you to buy the pro version every time you close a window. That is a nice change from most utilities.
The tool to be careful with is WinZip. It shows up on plenty of “best free software” lists, and for good reason on paper: it compresses and encrypts large files. But the free version is a trial, and it nags. If a ranking puts WinZip next to VLC and KeePass without noting the licensing difference, treat that list with suspicion.
The other thing worth saying: compression privacy matters more than people think. A zip you create and upload to a random web converter is now someone else’s file. Where a tool processes your data locally, that is a real advantage, not marketing filler.
PeaZip: the one to install if you want 7-Zip‘s power with a real interface
PeaZip is open source, runs on Windows and Linux, and handles more than 200 archive formats through its underlying backends. That number sounds like spec-sheet padding until you hit an obscure format at 11 p.m. and it just opens.
What I actually like is the interface. 7-Zip’s UI still looks like it shipped with Windows XP, and to be fair, that is part of its charm. PeaZip gives you a two-panel file browser, a clear archive layout, and a right-click menu that does not require you to guess which submenu hides “extract to here.”
The trade-offs are real. PeaZip is slower to open than 7-Zip on a cold start, and the settings dialog is dense enough to scare off casual users. If you only ever unzip a file once a week, 7-Zip is lighter. If you manage archives regularly, PeaZip earns its place.
Bandizip: fast on Windows, with one glaring catch
Bandizip is a Windows-only archiver from Bandisoft, the same company behind Honeycam and Bandicam. It is quick, it looks modern, and its “fast drag and drop” and preview features are genuinely pleasant.
Here is the catch. The free version is ad-supported. Ads appear in the interface, and while they are not full-screen takeover garbage, they are there. For a paid upgrade you remove them. Whether that bothers you is a personal call. For a tool you might open three times a day, I found it grating. For occasional use, it is fine, and the compression speed is a notch above the older Windows tools.
Bandizip handles ZIP, 7Z, RAR extraction, ALZ, EGG, TAR, and ISO among others. It also has a nice “archive repair” function, which has saved me exactly once and was worth the install on that day alone.
WinRAR: yes, it is still here, and the free trial never ends
WinRAR is shareware. After 40 days it asks you to pay. You can keep clicking past that prompt indefinitely, and most people do. I am not going to pretend this is a clean licensing situation, because it is not. But it is a fact of the category: WinRAR extracts RAR files better than anything else, because RAR is its own format.
If you frequently receive .rar archives, WinRAR is the no-drama choice. Encryption support is solid, recovery records work, and the command line tool (rar.exe) is scriptable if you automate backups. Just know that you are using software that expects payment and does not enforce it. If that bothers you ethically, support the developer or use 7-Zip, which extracts RAR but cannot create RAR archives.
B1 Free Archiver: simple, cross-platform, limited
B1 Free Archiver takes the opposite approach from PeaZip. It is minimal. It runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android, and it does the core job without a settings dialog that looks like a control panel.
The limits are also clear. It supports the common formats (ZIP, RAR, 7Z, TAR, and a handful more) but it is not trying to be a power tool. No recovery records, no fancy split options worth mentioning, and the compression ratios are ordinary. It is a good fit for someone who wants one simple unzip-and-go app across multiple operating systems and does not care about squeezing out extra compression.
The Mac situation
On macOS you already have Archive Utility built in, and it handles ZIP and a few other formats without installing anything. For RAR and 7Z files, though, you need a third-party tool, and the options are thinner than on Windows. Keka is the usual recommendation, and it handles 7Z, RAR, TAR, ISO, and more, with a clean drag-and-drop interface. The Unarchiver is the lighter alternative and does extraction well, though not archive creation.
One thing to watch on Mac: if a free app asks for full disk access just to unzip a folder, that is a warning sign. Extraction tools do not need that permission level.
Encryption: where free tools get uneven
AES-256 encryption is the baseline now, and 7-Zip, WinRAR, and PeaZip all support it. The differences show up in the details. Some tools only encrypt the file data and leave filenames visible. Some let you encrypt headers too, hiding the folder structure. If you are sending sensitive documents, verify which mode you are getting before you hit create.
This is also where Windows’ built-in ZIP support falls short. Windows can create ZIPs but does not offer strong encryption during that process. If you need to protect an archive on a clean Windows machine, install a real tool.
What I would actually install
For most Windows users: 7-Zip, and keep it updated. It is lean, it handles almost everything, and it is not going anywhere.
If 7-Zip’s interface makes you twitch, install PeaZip instead. Same open-source spirit, more usable, slightly heavier.
If you regularly receive RAR files, add WinRAR. If you want a single simple tool across Windows and Mac, B1 Free Archiver covers the boring cases without fuss.
Skip the free trials of commercial tools that nag you, and skip any web-based converter that wants you to upload a confidential archive to a server you do not control. The good news is that the best free compression tools are genuinely free, and the category has never needed a subscription to work well.