GonVisor is a Windows application that supports viewing pictures, comics, magazines, content of compressed archives and e-books from various formats, including CBR, CBZ, CBA, CB7, ZIP, RAR, ACE and 7ZIP. With the help of this application, you can create a group of selected images, order/reorder them, add a description (such as the author’s name, date, comment etc), and password protect them. Details past the break.

Files can be opened in GonVisor either by using the File drop down menu, or dragging supported files on to the main interface. The File menu contains options to open images, a list of images, a folder with images, images from a PDF, compressed archive formats (ZIP, RAR, 7Z) and comic book formats (CBZ, CBR, CBA, CB7). You can also extract opened image archives to a specified location, as well as copy an image to clipboard, print it, open a bookmark, open recent files and resume last file on startup. All these options have a hotkey displayed next to them for quickly opening the aforementioned files. You can move between pages (next/previous) from Actions menu, and switch to full screen mode, zoom, activate double page, magnify, rotate and improve image clarity from Image drop down menu.

During testing, we determined that while the application easily opened image and comic book archive files, it was unable to open archives that contained files of a different origin (such as an EXE file). This means that, although this application can open ZIP, RAR and 7Z archives, such archives must contain files of GonVisor supported format (e.g. PNG)

GonVisor is available in multiple languages, and with both an installer package as well as in portable format. Also check out Free Opener, which is an application that supports a large number of file formats, including video, audio, document and image formats. GonVisor works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download GonVisor

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WinArchiver Virtual Drive is a disc mounting application for mounting all kinds of CD/DVD images and compressed archives. You can run programs or access the files from a virtual disc without the need to use the original CD/DVD. This can greatly help reduce the strain on the lens of the optical drive, and generally prolong it’s life. WinArchiver Virtual Drive is similar to other applications of it’s kind, such as Magic Disc, with the exception that it can also mount ZIP, RAR, 7Z and other archives as virtual discs. This makes it possible to run compressed archives without extracting them, and also saves hard disk space. For example, you can run a compressed archive containing your files from a virtual drive rather than having to extract the archive, which may consume more hard disk space.

Using WinArchiver Virtual Drive is the same as any other disc mounting application. After installation, you can launch WinArchiver Virtual Drive and select the number of virtual drives you want.  You can enable the application to start at system startup, and go to application configurations from Options.

From here, you can select the number of drives to assign (up to 23 drives can be mounted, and the same option is also available from the system tray menu), assign drive letters to virtual discs, choose a temporary files’ folder and interface language.

WinArchiver Virtual Drive works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download WinArchiver Virtual Drive

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When it comes to compressing files and folders, many people tend to avoid using the Windows built-in compression functionality as several third-party application like WinRAR and 7Zip provide much better compression. While these applications are considered as the primary choice for most users, sometimes, a few relatively-unknown programs end up providing more features and better options. We earlier reviewed one such application known as PeaZip that provides the functionality of many compression formats within one integrated application. This time, we found another great compression application known as HaoZip, supporting decompression from 49 different formats including ZIP, 7ZIP, TAR and more. It also provides some handy built-in features for performing a variety of functions such as Batch Picture Conversion, checking of MD5 Checksum, image viewing, password protection of archives, etc.

You can either access HaoZip directly by launching the application individually, or by right-clicking a file to compress/decompress it.

If you are building a new archive, you can compress it in ZIP, 7Zip or TAR formats and password protect it. Most options available in the archive creation section are identical to the ones that you are likely to find in other compression applications.

Many UI features appear similar to WinrRAR and 7Zip. During testing we compared HaoZip to Winrar and 7Zip with a 475MB file and the result was as follows:

HaoZip: compression time: 1 minute 50 seconds (approximately), extraction time 9 seconds (approximately), compression size 445 MB of 475 MB.

7Zip: compression time: 1 minute 36 seconds (approximately), 8 extraction time seconds (approximately), compression size 445 MB of 475 MB.

WinRAR: compression time: 2 minutes 5 seconds (approximately), extraction time 9 seconds (approximately), compression size 453 MB of 475 MB.

While HaoZip does not live up to its claim of faster compression (since the compression size is as much as 7Zip), it does provide some extra options. The most notable of these include viewing and editing images. You can view a thumbnail preview of an image within HaoZip interface, and directly add files to archive, open images for editing, copy/cut items to clipboard, open containing folder, and move, rename and delete items via right-click context menu.

If you open the image in the previewer, it can be edited by opening it via MS Paint or you can change the image format from the HaoZip previewer.

HaoZip works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download HaoZip

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UnRarIt is an archive extraction program which can unpack RAR, ZIP and 7zip compressed archives together in one go. It supports drag and drop functionality and automatically extracts different kind of compressed archives to a specified folder. You can also extract password protected archives before entering a password or selecting a password list to crack the archive before extracting it. In case you have forgotten the password of a compressed archive, the cracking mechanism will try  passwords from a text document list and also utilize recently or commonly used terms in order to crack the archive’s password.

With the smart directory management feature of UnRarIt, you can generate directories with essential data only and can remove unwanted content to refine your extracted archives. The supported archives include both split and nested archives which makes it easy to obtain data from compact and fragmented sources to compile them in a tidy manner by selecting a single directory. It can also rename and/or delete successfully processed archives.

To begin, drag and drop compressed archives to the main interface, select a destination folder and click Extract Files. Since UnrarIt uses optimized extraction libraries and supports multi-threading, therefore, extraction process utilizes the optimum potential of multi-core processors for a better performance and a quicker process completion time.

During the extraction process the names of the files being extracted are displayed and correctly extracted files are marked with a green tick sign.

To extract password protected archives, select the file and click on Add Password to specify the password for authentication, you can then extract the file(s) to your selected folder. If you require cracking the password of a compressed archive, then you can use the Import option to load a password list to try and crack the password. During testing we successfully cracked an archive by assigning it a password and then importing a text list with multiple passwords including the correct one. The password list requires being saved as a text file.

You can open the archive directory, clear an item or all items from the list, reque items to extract them again and delete items via right-click context menu.

File extraction settings can be configured from File –> Open Preferences. The available options allow automatically skipping, overwriting, renaming and prompting for an action for duplicate files. Other options include auto removal of items after extraction and enabling extraction of nested archives.

UnRarIt works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download UnRarIt

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7-zip, despite being the best archiving utility available out there, lacks some UI specific aspects which would have made it a lot better. Since many beginners find it a quite difficult to go around with 7-zip, it would be a good idea to try out an application which covers both facets – fast archive creation and extraction and drop-dead UI.

Hamster Zip Archive is one such freshly developed archiving utility which, while having a neat and simple UI, offers almost all the features of 7-zip. What seems great about this application is, firstly, visually appealing user interface, and secondly, extremely simple usage. It claims to utilize full CPU resources while creating archives, so set of hefty files can be packed-up in a few minutes. As Windows shell integration is apparently important for every archiving utility, it not only integrates with Windows right-click context menu but offers uploading limit presets for splitting a set of files to send them via email (5MB), uploading them to Windows Live Skydrive (50MB), RapidShare (100), and for burning set of files to CD (650MB) and DVD(4.7 GB). The splitting feature is most significant from all the other included features, as it can quickly create a set of archives for uploading them to specified services while considering the upload limit, so you wont have to face any problems while uploading them to any of supported services.

The main interface does not have too many options to confuse you. All that is required is to drag and drop the files which are to be archived. Before you start creating an archive, choose the archive format – ZIP or 7zip, and compression level.

Alongside Create Archive window, Open Archive tab can be used to view and extract archive content. The usage is same. Just drop archive(s) to view and extract the content.

The Split archive menu in right-click context menu lets you choose the service for splitting selected file set into multiple archives, so you can upload them without encountering any upload limit related issues.

During archive creation process, you can see the files which are being processed with option to let it work in background (silent mode). You can also temporarily pause the process to complete some other important tasks, as it requires full CPU resources, so you wont be able to carry-on with your work while creating one big archive.

You can watch embedded video below which demonstrates the usage in detail.

Hamster Zip Archiver looks perfect for daily archive creation and extraction needs. It is fast, stable and looks awesome. We didn’t experience any problems or lags while creating and extracting archives.

Download Hamster Zip Archiver

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7Zip despite being an excellent tool for archiving data, does not include profiles and lists. By using archiving profiles and lists, you can lessen the overall effort to archive or extract files to a pre-selected directory. J7Z is an alternative open source GUI of 7Zip that enables users to create custom profiles for saving and extracting archives. By default, it comes with five different profiles, whereas users can create additional profiles as well. The pre-defined profiles include the Default profile, Flash (profile for saving archives to a flash drive), Local (for saving data to local drives), Remote (for saving archives to a remote location) and Storage (for saving archives to any kind of  storage device e.g. external drive).

To create an archive, right-click on a file or folder and select a profile to create the archive to, e.g. default, Flash, Remote, Storage, etc or click on Custom to create a custom profile from the GUI interface. You can also extract an archive in a similar way.

Alternatively, you can open the GUI and specify an algorithm type e.g. 7-Zip, G-Zip, Zip, etc. Moreover, the compression ratio can also be changed to fastest, fast, normal, maximum, or ultra. Optionally a password can also be specified for the archive that is to be created.

Now move to Locations tab and specify a directory to save the archive (if not compressing via right-click context menu) and click Create to create the archive.

Make sure that you save your profile from Profile –> Save. If you want to customize a profile first, then open it from Profile -> Load.

To summarize the process, you can either directly save the archive to a specified location by using profiles via right-click context menu or go to the GUI to specify additional details such as algorithm type, compression ratio, password, directory to save the data to, and click Create to create the archive. The same approach applies for extracting archive(s).

While the archives are extracted to a pre-defined location, the directory tree is preserved.

J7Z is a Java app, therefore the default skin is not appealing. Make sure you change the skin to ‘Windows’ from Options. It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download J7Z

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It happens quite so often that a set of downloaded archive packages carry voids, incomplete binaries and other problems which thwarts user to unpack the archive correctly, if you’ve faced such exceptions in the past while extracting compressed archives, you should consider giving AutoUnpack a shot. It is a Windows application which uses PAR2 mechanism (famous successor of PAR1) to verify completion of downloaded files. When there are some incomplete binaries, it will promptly fix and fill the voids from PAR2 blocks to unpack/extract all the contained content. Another noteworthy build-in feature is auto-removal of all the sources – RAR, 7z, ZIP,TS, etc., after unpacking of corresponding archives is successfully completed

To start, you need to specify archive folder (source) and a location where archives are to be extracted. It consistently monitors the source folder for archives, on finding a new archive in specified source folder, it will start listing them down in the main interface. Since it processes all the archive in top to bottom sequence, you have options to sort the list in different orders. Once done, click Start to begin unpacking the archives.

By default, after all the archives are processed (unpacked or repaired), it moves them to Recycle Bin. The application is highly customizable in terms of features’ behaviors, you can change this removal behavior and customize other general options from Settings window. Since it is largely built to repair archives, it maintains a detailed list of statistics and history of all the processed files to review the errors it encountered during repairing the archives.

From Process tab, you can customize all the process-related settings – specify process mode, enable/disable processing of sub-folders, etc.

The Purge settings tab refers to all the deletion specific options, you can either permanently remove the archives after deletion or keep the default option enabled.

From Event Settings, notifications settings along with other options to auto restart AutoUnpack process and start with Windows logon can be enabled/disabled.

The Advanced settings mainly refers to CPU usage, you can define a CPU threshold to limit its overall consumption.

Since it uses PAR files to automatically compensate the voids and problems in archive files, so If you frequently download files from usenet.com, you will probably observe its real usability.  The application works fine and supports Windows XP/Vista/7; testing was done on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download AutoUnpack (Download Mirror)

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Android does not handle many file formats natively, this is why file managers are so popular. If you want to open compressed files which are in Zip, Rar, Gz, or Tar formats, then file managers, such as, Astro File Manager, Dual File Manager, and EStrongs File Explorer can open them easily. But if the compressed file is in 7Zip format or bzip2 format, then AndroZip File Manager is what you need.

Not only can AndroZip File Manager open the compressed files but also uncompress them. Just browse any compressed file in your SDCard and tap it. It will prompt you to extract the file in the same directory or in any other directory. Both compressed and uncompressed files can also be shared via email or any other service that supports sending of a file.

AndroZip File Manager also includes task killer, search, and applications manager which can install apps from within a compressed file. It works only with ZIP, RAR, 7ZIP, GZIP, TAR, and BZIP2 formats.

Download AndroZip File Manager from AppBrain or scan the provided QR code.

Editor’s Notes: This is the only app in the Android Market that supports 7zip format. I could not find any other tool which can open or extract 7zip compressed file. If you do find any, share with us in the comments.

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Document Press is an attempt from developers of 7-Zip compression utility to compress Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access files instead of using other generic compression software, which might not be effective in compressing MS Office documents. It is a small portable tool which was released back in 1999 (Yes, I know it is more than a decade back) and has not been updated since. The version is still 1.0 and the reason for reviewing it today is because we found it to be working with Office 2010 as well. Developed for older versions of Office, the official support, as mentioned in the user’s manual, is for .doc, .xls, .ppt, and some more document formats only, but we found it to be working with .docx and .xlsx too.

From the main interface, you can either choose to process all non-removable drives, or select any file or folder (for batch processing). When done, enter either wildcards or enable All files option to include all supported formats. It offers two compression modes; Recursive and Estimate, choose a mode and click Start to compress the files accordingly.

So how does it actually work? According to the developers, compound files provide incremental saves inherently, so the physical size of a compound file on disk will typically be larger than necessary. This is because the size of the file is determined by the amount of space between the first and last sectors used by that file. Document Press reorganizes file content and removes all the dead space.

But what is a compound file? Compound file is a number of individual files bound together in one physical file. Most Microsoft programs write data to compound files and almost all MS Office programs write data to compound files.

In layman’s term, Document Press reduces file size by removing dead space. Also keep in mind that there is NO any data loss.

Depending on the number of documents, it will take relative amount of time. In our experience, it successfully compressed approx 100 files in 4-5 seconds. The progress window shows the compression ratio, number of compressed bytes, and bytes reduced.

It also comes with a command line tool, to learn more on how it works, read the DocPress User Manual residing in the same folder as Document Press. It supports all version of Windows (32-bit only), we tested it on Windows 7 x86 system.

Make sure to run this program as administrator with Windows 98/NT compatibility mode.

Download Document Press (Softpedia link because there is no product page)

Editor’s Note: We do not review old software, let alone a software which is more than a decade old. We are always looking for newer tools and if you think there is a better alternative, let us know in the comments.

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Demands for file-compression utilities are getting higher as time progresses. Today systems are generally overwhelmed with a lot of data that needs to be archived. The file-compression utilities can be useful for compressing or backing-up precious data, which eventually provides extra space. As for now, 7-zip is the most eminent file-compression utility but severely lacks a handy user interface. Bitser, however, is an alternative that provides almost every feature of 7-Zip along with extensive tabbed and easy-to-use interface having numerous options for managing archives & backups.

Editor’s Note: Hamster Zip Archiver is better, faster, and more user friendly alternative to 7-Zip. Check it out here.

It supports multitude of archive formats (MSI,GZIP,TAR,ZIP,DEB, etc) and can create archives in widely used archiving formats including; ZIP, 7-ZIP, and EXE. Apart from general archiving options, it also includes checksum (algorithm) calculator for file checksum verification. The windows explorer context menu integration is similar to 7zip but comes with additional options to quickly create archive or extract the files, folders, etc.

The main tabbed-interface is quite neat & simple to use. It supports simple drag & drop behavior to add files either in existing archive or for creating new archive from scratch. From left sidebar, you’ll see explorer for quicker navigation through the files & folders. Despite being an archiving-utility, it is also a password manager for storing multiple passwords in AES (Advance Encryption Standard) encrypted file. Under Reports tab, you can view history of archived files, parameters which were used during compression, and compression ratios used earlier, etc. For managing archives under one hood, head over to Manage tab to add multiple archives and add/delete items.

Under Options tab, you’ll find different sections under which different options are dispersed. You can configure options for; Folder Extraction, Working Folder, Extension Associations, Context Menu, Language, and other generic options.

Manage previously saved archives & backups.

Report Generator saves and keep tracks of every archived operation.

Powerful password manager to secure password with staunch AES encryption.

Options tab for changing application preferences.

According to the developer it is suitable for users who want an alternate user interface similar to what is found in backup applications. It runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 (Both 32 and 64 versions are supported). Testing was done on system running Windows 7 32-bit OS.

Download Bitser

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Backing up important data is a useful practice for safekeeping your files. Using a compressed backup will ensure that you don’t waste precious storage space either. 7Backup is a useful little tool which saves your backup files in the excellent .7z format, accessible via 7zip software.

The interface is rather too plain for convenience, with no option to browse for files even. You need to add address for source files/folders needed to be backed up, along with the backup file name and destination. The software supports backup from network sources as well. You also get to specify the network account to use, as well as adding exceptions to the files/folders for backup.

Once you have set up everything, click Start backup. The progress window will open and backup process will begin. You can also save the current settings if you want, for future use.

The output backup file is saved in .7z format, and requires 7zip to be opened, which you will have to obtain separately. Strange enough, in our test, the output file got placed in the same folder as the 7Backup executable, instead of going to the output folder specified. Maybe this will get fixed in future builds.

As for the backup file itself, it was good. Integrity was kept and compression applied was impressive. We attribute this to the usage of the efficient .7z format. One interesting thing to note was that if you perform a new backup of some files different from previous ones, the software will add them to the previous backup instead of creating a new file. Whether this would appeal to users or not, we liked this feature.

7Backup is portable, but you will need to extract the downloaded file before being able to use it. It works with all editions of Windows.

Download 7Backup

You can also try Saft Backup as an alternative.

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7zip is the most recommended way of compressing the files into an archive. It is an opensource tool which allows quick compression and extraction of 7zip, Gzip, Zip, Rar, and other archives. Most users tend to lock the 7zip file with a password but hackers can still extract the archive by bypassing the password. Let me explain how.

7z Cracker is an opensource cracking tool which can extract any password protected 7zip file. It is developed for the purpose of helping users recover their files if they have forgotten the password.

The process is pretty straight forward, once you extract the 7z Cracker, grab the 7zip command line tool called 7za.exe(link given at the bottom of this post) and put it inside the same directory where 7zCracker is residing. Also move the password protected 7zip file (that you want to crack/extract) into the same directory. Now start 7zCracker.exe and enter the archive name along with the extension as shown in the screenshot below.

Once you hit Enter, the 7zip archive will be extracted and you will find the content inside the est folder.

Editor’s Important Note: While adding files to 7zip archive, just below the passwords field there is an option to encrypt the file name. While testing I observed that once this option is checked, 7zCracker will not be able to extract your files. So next time you password protect your 7zip archive, make sure that you have selected an option to encrypted the files as well.

Download 7zCracker

Download 7zip Command Line Tool (7za.exe)

It works on all versions of Windows.

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• 7Zip To Exe Converter

Do you want to convert 7Zip to self-extracting Exe files? Self-extracting Exe files can be useful when you need to send the files to a less technical person(e.g, your parents) and also when you need to carry the content in a USB flash drive.

7-Zip Sfx Maker is a free tool that can batch convert 7zip archive into self-extracting Exe file.

It provides vast number of options that allow users to tweak almost every aspect of the Exe file. First add 7zip archives(you can add as many as you want) to the list(it supports drag & drop), go to General tab and choose the extraction patch, overwrite mode, and some more options.

You can even choose when messages to display before the extraction begins, after it end, and when cancelled. Apart from it you can also rename the text of Title, extract path, and cancellation.

When converted, the extension AddictiveTips.7zip becomes AddictiveTips.sfx.exe.

Once you load the newly created exe archive, a new dialog will open asking for extraction path.

Hit OK and the files will be extracted instantly. There are almost limitless uses for a self-extracting Exe files.

Note: This program uses Resource Hacker to change the SFX icon. Resource Hacker can also be downloaded from the developer’s page. If you don’t want to change the icon, then you can ignore Resource Hacker.

Download 7-Zip Sfx Archive

It is a portable converter and works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. A minimum .NET Framework 2.0 is required, but 3.5 or 3.5 SP1 is recommended. Enjoy!

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