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That's true: 7-zip SDK is a real mess and it is only available for C++ language. But in ZipGenius is coded with Delphi, so how I did that? That's simple to explain: ZipGenius compresses files to 7-zip using the 7za.exe module (Igor Pavlov has authorized me to distribute it - proper copyright is specified ), which is the original 7-zip standalone application for console usage, while files extraction has been achieved by using the C.a.k.e. VCL made by... Joseph Leung, QuickZip's developer
Unfortunately, there is no native Delphi VCL but having one would solve many performance issues. Any volunteer to translate the SDK?

Don't worry about what other website say about your review: it is a good article, but it could be even better.
I have some suggestion for an eventual "Take 2" of your article.

1 - When testing archivers, be sure to use the same compression format on any software: in fact, WinRAR, 7-zip, ZipGenius and any other archiver, all have different compression engines that handle almost the same compression formats, but they all have different performances. A test based on ZIP compression and files extraction would be reliable, only because ZIP is handled by all compression utilities.

2 - Write a separated section about which format compresses better among 7-zip, rar, zip and ace; also you should point out that while RARlab doesn't allow third parties developer to make archivers that can compress to RAR, 7-zip is open source and anybody may write a compression software based on this compression format, that will offer rar-like performances, if properly used.

I began accepting donations for ZipGenius just because many people asked to fo that. I got many e-mails from happy users that asked me how to contribute to the development and I activates a PayPal account just to receive these donations.
ZipGenius basically is freeware and I let people free to donate or not, but any donation will help me to maintain the website online and to replace old hardware parts on my development machine; in fact, last time I bought a 200 GB Maxtor HD that I am using to test ZG features on huge files, each sized over 10 Gb.

Accepting donation makes developers happy - as many of you told before - because they  understand that someone is enjoying what they have created.

Semi off-topic. Matteo, I was just in chat room where users were bragging about how good ZipGenius support was, and three people in a row mentioned your name and gave examples of how you had helped them out or responded to their questions. That's class.

Thank you and thanks to those users
I am an user, too.
I started ZipGenius development because I was tired of seeing WinZip's nag screen at each WZ startup, so I learned how to write an application with Delphi. It was 1997 and the original program name was "Mr. Zip 98" but I had to find a different name because "MR ZIP" was the name of another zip utility (now abandoned).

 

[zipgenius (AT ) gmail.com]

D:\TEST>md5sum *.exe
fdb6a21d4bf28ac48386e39b231ae6d9 *before.exe
e416ee063fd5f278a1b9391fae658b40 *Tsizepro.exe


I wouldn't risk using this ZipGenius compression option personally, it seems to be a poor kludge to work around compression limitations in the Zip format, and I doubt it gives much real world compression gain as well as potentially mangling some of your executables.  If you are going to make a non-standard format archive (Matteo said they were non-portable) the programmer might as well use a better compression algorithm such as LZMA and not mess around with risking user's executables.

Good to hear this. Can you send an executable file compiled with Visual Studio 2003 to zipgenius (AT ) gmail.com? I tested UPX a lot before adding it to ZG 6 and - yes - I did that to open new ways to ZIP compression format. It is true that ZIP format is now almost obsolete, but it is still widely used and this forced me to offer a portable alternative WinZip's enhanced deflate. While WZ-made zip files are not portable to other utilities, ZIP archives with UPX-compressed executable are: you can open them in other utilities because the ZIP algorhythm is always the standard one and not a modified version as WinZip's implementation.
Anyway, all suggestions are well accepted 

[non-portable zip files]

Hello.
I am Matteo Riso, ZipGenius developer. A ZG user pointed me to your review and I find it really nice, but I have to point out some errors upon ZipGenius.



1 . "Best archive size achieved". Did you try Brutal+UPX compression level?
In ZipGenius 6 you can put "UPX.exe" ( http://upx.sourceforge.net ) in ZipGenius program folder. The program will recognize it and you will be allowed to pre-compress executable files (EXE, OCX, DLL) through UPX, before adding them to a ZIP file.
Why I added this feature? Many applications are distributed uncompressed but they could be smaller if their developers would use UPX. Here is a PDF about the benefit of using UPX as precompressor: Read this UPX. This feature will produce smaller ZIP files, even smaller than using WinZip's Maximum (Enhanced deflate) compression method, which also produces non-portable zip files (e. g.: you can't read those archives in other ZIP utilities).

2 . "Batch archive extraction". This feature is partially supported. Better: it is an automatic procedure. You just have to open multiple archives at once (ZipGenius uses tabs like Firefox to display the content of many archives) and right-clik on tabs:

Now you just have to click on "Extract all archives to separated folders". This is a batch procedure driven by the program.
Other batch actions may be done by hand using the command line support.

3 . "Licence type - SW". That's wrong.
ZipGenius is free for any environment: home, office, corporate, educational and so on. Donations are accepted just to maintain the main website and other services like mirror sites, forum , FAQ and Help online.

4 . "Cons" in your review:

Yes, it can, and it can also split other kind of files through the Cutter ZGTool.

The Suite Edition of ZipGenius includes both UPX.exe and Cutter tool, so that should be the package to use when trying out all ZipGenius features: except compiled help files, it includes everything plus additional themes for ZipGenius GUI.

Greetings