7-Zip Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
7-Zip is a data compression and file-archiving program for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It operates either as a command line program or with a graphical user interface. It also features integration with the Windows shell environment. 7-Zip is a free software, distributed under the GNU LGPL licence. It is a competitor to the market-leading WinZip and WinRAR program, which are closed source.7-Zip introduced the flexible 7z file format, but it also supports a number of other compressed and uncompressed archive file formats, including ZIP, Microsoft cabinet (CAB) files, RAR, ARJ, Gzip, Bzip2, TAR, CPIO, RPM, and Debian deb archives.
For Zip and Gzip files, 7-Zip uses a implementation of the deflate algorithm which manages to compress more. This implementation is also used in the AdvanceCOMP tools.
For 7z format files, 7-Zip also supports AES based file encryption and the creation of self-extracting archives.
The native 7z format is an open modular architecture which allows to store files compressed using different algorithms, with unicode filenames.
By default the program creates files in the 7z archive format (with the file extension .7z) using LZMA algorithm for compression, which manages to create the smallest files against ACE, RAR, etc. which are based in older algorithms. Such files have the MIME-type application/x-7z-compressed.