The view feature is a nice but please:

Add an option to wrap looong lines in the text preview mode


- Ben

London John @40: Drag and drop works fine for me both into and out of a zip archive.

Sparkles @ 42: I copied and pasted the serial with the mouse, not sure why it's not working for you.

Come on Developer, are we living in the Dark Ages?

Let us paste in the serial number, not have to copy it one letter/number at a time. (and no Ctrl + V doesn't work here - What?)

#23. I disagree that #3's comments are totally unuseful. One of the basic hurdles any new software out there must overcome is that very question - why would I buy this software versus a different, more established brand? And if that brand is for free, why would I then pay for this?

It's not an unreasonable question - it should be the first question a software developer (of which I am) should entertain before they start writing code. If they are not going to add value to the marketplace, then why do it? What is there to add? If it's just for the sake of skimming money away from other alternatives for the author's benefit, there could not be a worse reason.

But it's that author's job to help us distinguish that difference at the start. Maybe something in the product notes that answers that very question?

Free archiving programs can do what they want but a commercial one *must* have Windows Shell integration (ie. at least Windows Explorer context menu support). Zipping and unzipping from Windows Explorer makes archiving really easy for users. Windows Shell integration is not trivial but it's not difficult either. There are tutorials and free source code available with a bit of effort.

Another aspect of Shell integration is that should be possible to drag a file from the AverZip explorer window into a folder in Windows Explorer and vice versa. It's not possible in AverZip but 7-zip will readily do this. This is an essential part of user-friendliness, especially for minor operations. Open an archive, find a file, drag it into a Windows Explorer folder, done. Conversely, open an archive, drag a file into it from Window Explorer, it gets added to the archive, done.

The second disadvantage of this program, and unfortunately one that makes it a no-no for me, is that it has a fixed font size hardcoded within the program rather than being set with reference to my Windows settings.

My less than desirable eyesight plus having a large monitor means that I need a larger font than standard (changed within the Control panel/Display/Monitor properties). A lowercase letter in a compliant program is 7 pixels high whereas in AverZip it's only 6 pixels. Now, while that may not seem much, it's the difference, for me, between readability and having to read with an uncomfortable squint. However, I don't just speak for myself. For those whose eyesight requires an even larger font, there would be a correspondingly greater difficulty reading and using the program.

It's a very good looking program, certainly it makes 7-zip look ugly in comparison but, without being able to use it from Windows Explorer and without being able to read the text within the program, I'm afraid it's most likely to gather dust instead of becoming my zip program of choice.

I *shall* keep the program but only as a last resort, being when I encounter a .zipx file, which 7-zip doesn't handle yet.

Some people have asked about comparisons with other programs. Feature comparisons are good (and we've already covered two important ones that I need) but if they mean things like compression ratios and execution speed, well, to be honest, I don't care that much about saving a megabyte here or a minute or two there. Computers get faster and hard drives get larger and in 5 years time even a really slow archiving program will still take mere seconds to compress gigabytes (I exaggerate, of course, lol).

What doesn't improve automatically is how much effort the user needs to expend to get the task done. That's where the good archivers will stand out from the bad ones.

I use 7-Zip to handle most of my compression needs, because it's quite fast and has minimal fat. For anything that 7-Zip can't handle, there's always Universal Extractor (http://legroom.net/software/uniextract). For anything UniExtract can't handle, I usually reverse engineer the format myself.

This program looks like it's nothing more than a frontend to various open source/free compression DLLs. It uses the original 7-Zip plugin DLLs, Microsoft's CAB component, someone's RAR module, and one without any version info on it (which I doubt was made by themselves). The encryption is done using the OpenSSL libraries. So you're pretty much paying $25 for the user interface, which, from the reviews, isn't working as well as it should work.

for zipping, I use JustZipIt
Normally to open ANY compression file I use Alzip
(get an older version for a Free one, they have gone Share/trialware
lately)
Howerver, I have a few rar files that popup an error 'File not found'
so want other software to try. Matbe one of those will find the files.
They take up too much space to be empty 70-95+ MB !!

Hi Trucker thanks for the preview tip. As for the comparison chart, I know that you can see what you get, but it would be useful to be able to compare this software with other file archivers much like you can do with Security software. Rather than have to research every file rchiver seperately and write the details down on paper it would be nice if the developer took the time to compare all those that are available including commercial and freeware.

I use the free 7-zip
http://www.7-zip.org/
High compression ratio in 7z format with LZMA and LZMA2 compression
Supported formats:
Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM
Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DEB, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, VHD, WIM, XAR and Z.
For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
Self-extracting capability for 7z format
Integration with Windows Shell
Powerful File Manager
Powerful command line version
Plugin for FAR Manager Localizations for 79 languages
Also

Windows Live SkyDrive offers 25GB of free online storage. You can use SkyDrive storage to back up your files online for free, or to share large files with others.
http://explore.live.com/windows-live-skydrive

Hey, here's an idea. One is not better then the other so why not have more then one zip file manger? I use the tried/battle tested WinZip, jZip and 7Zip and now, I'll add one more. When one I use will depend on how I feel that day :-). Same can be said for all the video converters, audio editors and graphic editors. They all lack one thing or another so that's why Microsoft gave use the power to create FOLDERS so we can put all these programs that fill up our hard drive in a neat place. Thanks to the developers and GOTD (and those leaving comments). I'll add this program to my vast endless supply of utilities and remove those who just don't live up to the next version. Never used a program from this group so looking forward to trying and see if it's worth paying for, just like I have for WinZip and a few others here.

Gee... 7-zip can compress ZIP, 7-Zip, and tarballs (though not RAR, who uses it anyway), as well as decompress RAR files. It's always free and lightweight. It's known to be completely safe and such. And it's always free. No thanks on "AverZIP".

7-Zip File Manager and IZArc are free and way better for a lot of the file archive compression formats.

Thanks to all those who offered their comments without actually testing the software, most helpful.
The preview feature I missed out in #11 was that under certain circumstances it offers differing methods of viewing, they are, as text, as hex, as media and as web document.

FYI, Averzip handles some formats not covered by 7-zip, and 7-zip handles some formats not covered by Averzip.

7-Zip supported formats:
* Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM
* Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DEB, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, VHD, WIM, XAR and Z.

AverZip Compression and decompression:
* Compress files into ZIP, ZIPX, 7ZIP, JAR, CAB, BH, TAR, LHA, TGZ, TBZ
* Open and extract ZIP, ZIPX, RAR, 7ZIP, CAB, TAR, JAR, ACE, ARC,ARJ, BH, BZ, BZ2, ENC, GZ, HA, LHA, LZH, MBF, MIM, PAK, PK3, SQX, TBZ, TGZ, UUE, UU, WAR, XXE, ZAP, ZOO

Not seeing a need for this when there are so many other proven utilities for free that work excellent. Myself, I use WinRar 4.01 and couldn't be happier.

Note that, not required any skins or gui, only required user friendlyness, and best compression ration, your own algorithm.

First of all, i have studied so many softwares for compression. But arj is the best.. but arj is for dos operating system. There is no any software like arj. Maintains good compression ratio. If you want to develop compression software then add following faciltiy.

Chapter facility - In arj we find chapterwise backup of our files. It means when we backup our files on first day, it takes backup for all files. On second day, it uses first day file for modification and add modified files or new files in same archive. Continues on 3rd, 4th .. and so on . Up to 250 chapters we can backup in single file. And we can extract any day file from this backup.

If u got this algorithm or technique, this GUI software will be worlds number 1 software.

I like it! X-tra Kudos to that excellent Preview feature!
That alone is worth using on some real big archives without havin to decompress them first!
Than you folks!

I want winrar on gaotd. :) No more experimental software !

Utter garbage, had the same result as number 1 and I also did NOT choose to associate it with my archives (ZIP and RAR files). Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit O/S if that helps.

Windows itself does a decent job with ZIP files, only reason I wanted to try it was to access the few RAR files without using WinRAR which is even worse than this, thanks to comment 3 I am now using 7-zip which is freeware and actually works.

I appreciate the GAOTD website, but comments like #3 add nothing to the conversation. Please tell me about the program, not about some alternative. Compare the two if you'd like, but please add some info about the GAOTD.

That said, AverZip seems like a good program for the novice user. The graphical wizards are pretty intuitive, IMO. Everything is here that should be in a good compression program. I really found nothing to complain about.

The upload options are nice, and everything is easy to follow with the wizards. Adding the option to upload to SkyDrive would be nice. That would also require automatically splitting files to less than 50 MB.

I haven't compared compression ratios vs 7-zip (my current preferred compression program).

The price does seem a bit high considering the competition that is available for free, but this does seem to be one of the more noob-friendly interfaces out there. A price point of no more than $15 would be better.

Very nice giveaway!! Comparable to WinZip 15.5 and with almost all of th esame features. While freeware/shareware tools are out there, the biggest issue is support that's included with the registered software. As for the menu's popping up on compression/decompression, it's a simple switch within the Options menu. (WinZip and WinRAR have the same initial options.) Installed without issues on Windows 7-64bit/SP1 the first time. Would like to see more support for "Upload to:" - SkyDrive, Facebook, DropBox, StorageClouds.me, etc. though.

# 3. Why would anyone pay for this when 7-zip is free and handles every format you can think of?

Comment by Dch48 — August 28th, 2011 at 4:10 am


LOL...maybe because not everybody knows that 7-zip is free and handles whatever format you want....

As simple as that...LOL!

Yeah, I gotta agree with with #3 up there. 7-Zip handles everything I've ever thrown at it, and it's free. Heck, you can even use Winrar for as long as you want without purchasing it, if you don't mind the nag screen.

There are so many free equivalents of this. Wouldn't pay, thats for sure.

I've been using the free IZArc for years and am absolutely happy with it. Don't need anything else. Check it out here.

Both yesterday and today I am having problems installing the day's program (never was able to yesterday) and the same problem today. When installing it gives me the message "unable to connect try again later". I am located in NJ, and we are having a major storm on us. Not sure where the problem lies as I am on the net with no problem, other than the install, when it checks to see if it is valid for the day (keywrapper is running). Anybody else having this problem.

7-zip may be free but it doesn't have quite a few features that this software has. Maybe you should try it before commenting! This program can create self-extracting .exes. It can convert compressed files to different formats. It can combine compressed files. Also the software does not 'force you' to associate files and you can view files without having associations you just need to select the extension type in the explorer window. The program has a file preview panel that can be set as default. 'Skins' may be the wrong word, different colour themes might be more accurate. Plus it is 'ease' to use as the developer says. Definitely a 'keeper' for me! Thx Wonderbit & Gaotd!

Not to mention, there's which is also completely free

On the website it states that it uses AES encryption which is impossible to crack. Meanwhile elsewhere on the web we have "Cryptographers have found a new chink in the widely used AES encryption standard that suggests the safety margin of its most powerful cipher is not as high as previously thought", as well as "Cryptographers have discovered a way to break the Advanced Encryption Standard used to protect everything from top-secret government documents to online banking transactions." So rather than "impossible" they need to change it to "very difficult".

There are far too many 'Me Too' programs around for money when the freeware ones are just as good if not better. With huge numbers of Computer Science undergraduates cherning out freeware for their course projects there realy is no need to buy software, ever again.
I have been using computers since Win95 and so far I have never bought any software. GiveAwayOfTheDay should become Freeware of the Day and trawl the net for the best Freeware and present that for analysis.

Better way to compare with other archive utility to give a comparison chart about the effectiveness of the utility: for example about compression effectiveness.

Before installation I created a restore point because it associated itself with so many archive types, just in case I had problems. Fortunately, I needn't have worried, installation went well as did the registration.
I tested it initially by opening an archive containing photographs and then some containing programming source code files. The preview showed them in their correct format, pleasing as the language source code did not have a TXT extension.
Creating archives went equally well, and was very simple to use compared to many.
I found this a really impressive piece of software, I particularly love the ability to preview and the interface is very attractive. It isn't cheap and there are lots of free programs to extract or compress archives, even so I would be tempted to buy it. This delightful piece of software is definitely going to stay on my hard drive.

Downloaded installed and ran. All with no hitches.

Unzipped a couple of files nice and quickly, so no probs there.

BUT when i tried compressing a file and compared the results with 7Zip, that is when 7Zip comes into it's own.

Pic files compress fairly well with this offering but MP3's - Forget it.

No thanks. Will stiok with the free 7Zip.

AverZip

Warning issued.

The program cut the folder and file name.

Before ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. After
My Documents ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ument

This happens with several folders and files.

Half of the folders whent missing.

Because of this error, I can not evaluate this program more deeply.
The question is how it handles compressed data. Do it also change the data that is compressed?

I believe that 7Z is the best archivator and decompressor.


Beside those listed above functions important is the ratio of compression!


http://superb-sea2.dl.sourceforge.net/project/sevenzip/7-Zip/9.22/7z922-x64.msi



http://cdnetworks-us-2.dl.sourceforge.net/project/sevenzip/7-Zip/9.22/7z922-x64.msi



http://cdnetworks-us-2.dl.sourceforge.net/project/sevenzip/7-Zip/9.22/7z922_extra.7z





http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip/

Although it works just fine there are too many free alternatives that won't drain your wallet of $25.

Given the abundance of archive software, is this worth buying? Nope. Is it worth downloading and using as a freebie? Maybe

Things to like about this:
* It's fast. In my (informal) tests it was about 30% faster than 7zip using comparable settings (and the 7z file type). Not that big of a deal.

* It's efficient. It (fairly consistently) created smaller 7z archives than 7zip. Not enough to make a difference, but it does work fairly well.

Things not to like:
*It defaults to the zip file type, even if the preference is set to 7zip. What's more, the only way to change the archive type is to manually change the name: there is no option to select another file type. That's annoying but not a big problem.

*It will not mask the names in 7zip mode when the archive is encrypted. That's a big problem because you probably want that and it IS an option in 7zip.

*The popup window that appears when the operation completes. It's annoying and there's no way to turn it off.

The cloud storage uploader is so limited as to not be a factor: There are certainly better options.

#2 Whiterabbit-uk - Turn on preview then you don´t need right-click anything ! Comparison chart ? How should that be possible ? You can see what you get and that is it ! Or write it down on a paper, like in old days before PC was born...

#3 Dch48 - The GUI is more user friendly.

1st Install didn´t work... didn´t accept any settings, told it was on trial... uninstalled it...
2nd Install forced windows to restart and made a short loop when loading icons on the desktop.

Pros
- Fast GUI, can be maximized, skin options (Aluminum is my perfered)
- Build-in HEX viewer (when Preview is turned on)
- Show you the procces of compressing with animated bars (usefull with large files)
- When preview is on you´re able to see things like Ratio % and Packed size
- You work with the same way you use windows explorer

Cons
- Can´t Associate archive types in settings (Failed to set data for ")
- Online Storage Account and it can´t be turned off ! (I can´t see the point with a Online Storage Account when you compress your files and this way make most files smaller. Ready to save on your own backup HDD at home.)

Why would anyone pay for this when 7-zip is free and handles every format you can think of?

After checking this through throughly I like it. There are some additional features that I'd like to see added, which after a careful perusal of the program seem to be missing.

1) ... Include the ability to see what's inside the archive when right clicking on it (via the drop down menu)

2) ... Include more obvious skins - the ones provided are rather insipid

3) ... Include the ability for the user to create their own skins and share them with the community

4) ... Not foce the user to associate AverZip with the archive so that you can access the Windows explorer user interface and shell. As it stands you can't unless you associate the file

4) ... Create a comparison chart of all known file archivers such as 7-Zip, Zip, J-Zip, Stuff It Win Rar, CAB, ZipX etc on the developers web site so that the user can compare what they already have to see if it's worth installing

5) ... Allow the user to use the demo first as opposed to being forced to register it before you can use it. (I did notice that you can download a demo from the develoipers web site, but the one provided by the giveaway team does not allow the user to trial the software first.

6) ... Include an editing tool that enables the user to create their own skins and even create different user interfaces all of which could be shared by the community by allowing the user to upload to the developers ftp

7) ... Add more upload sites to the online storage account. t present there doesn't seem any way to do this?



Overal though I'm quite impressed with this software. It has everything that I could possibly want in a file archiver and is cheaper than the archiver I purchased a few years ago (Stuff It)

Thanks to the giveaway team and WonderBit Labs for sharing this software with the giveaway community. :)

I downloaded the software and installed it without any problems.
When i went to extract a font zip file in the folder it resided (extract here), form the shell extension nothing happened other than my user folder opened.
So i tried extract - same thing
I tried extract to folder - same thing.

I uninstalled the software.It didn't completely un install itself.It left a folder named Averzip in Programs directory.Which i couldn't delete until i restarted the computer.

Installed nicely and looked good in the shell right click menu but, i had trouble using it.

I should mention i decided on install NOT to associate my archives.Maybe this had something to do with it.Seems like it should not have mattered though.Seeings how you are given a choice at install.

Thanks,
Rod