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Last post Author Topic: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions  (Read 81160 times)

Carol Haynes

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #25 on: August 22, 2005, 08:34 AM »
I agree too, its about the only thing I dislike about WinRAR

Darwin

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #26 on: August 22, 2005, 10:16 AM »
Yeah, I've got to say I agree with this as well. My usage sounds similar to Mouser's - I've always got at least one Dopus window open and don't need another faux file manager opening each time I want to zip/unzip a file. That's why context menu support is important to me.

mouser

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #27 on: August 22, 2005, 02:48 PM »
carol, winrar doesnt try to be a file explorer - unless im missing something?

Carol Haynes

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #28 on: August 22, 2005, 04:50 PM »
???



Looks like a file browser to me ???

jpfx

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #29 on: August 22, 2005, 05:38 PM »
I would say winrar uses the minimal amount of hooks into explorer's API to enable navigation, honoring file associations, etc, but that's about it. So browser; yes but file explorer; no.
       |\      _,,,---,,_         
ZZZzzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;, 
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mouser

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #30 on: August 22, 2005, 05:53 PM »
ah fair enough, you're right, but jpfx is right too -
in fact i think winrar strikes the perfect balance.

when you open up an archive it looks like you are just looking inside that archive, but you can pop out to the parent folder, which can be useful actually.  i actually find it a perfect balance.

i was more obecting to the zip programs that have the full dual panel folder tree, etc.


i actually like tugzip a lot, and it has options how you want to view it, whether you want full browser mode or the compact mode i prefer.  here is the full browser mode screenshot that shows what i was saying i don't like: http://www.tugzip.co...screenshots/main.jpg

zridling

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #31 on: August 22, 2005, 06:00 PM »
Carol, I must say, that's a kickass system you have! Like mouser, I've never thought of using WinRAR's Explorer capabilities. I was playing around with a new Windows Explorer replacement and it's funny how those programs want to do everything for you and toss your other apps — open pictures, associate archives, FTP!, back massage, and so on. Almost every time, they don't do them well either.

Carol Haynes

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #32 on: August 22, 2005, 07:23 PM »
Just a shame it seems to be my ass that gets kicked a lot.

I set up like this to allow me to separate out Audio, video and graphic apps so that they can run without virus apps (no internet) etc., and avoid all the usual crap that accumulates under Windoze and slows the system down. They all share the same Temp folder and PageFile too, and data storage is common to all installations.

Trouble is that even though I spent hours planning and setting up my ideal system, I still install almost everything on drive C: too - so day to day stuff still runs like swimming through treacle and my "ideal" parallel installations get under used.

Good in principle though ;)

Back on topic ...

I realise WinRAR has pretty minimal explorer capabilities, but I still personally find it unnecessary. I would prefer it is when I double click on an archive it simply shows the contents. The ability to move up to the parent directory doesn't really serve any purpose to my mind, and it gets confusing if you navigate about, forget where you are and start adding files to the archive.

OK maybe I am simple minded, but I would prefer to see the archive contents only (possibly with a tree view option), and if I want to add files etc. I just drag them in from Explorer.

It is possible to work like this, so I am being over picky probably, but it seems a more logical and less confusing approach to my simple mind.  :-[

zridling

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #33 on: August 23, 2005, 07:21 AM »
Good points, but as I'll show in my review, the best programmers aren't building archivers right now. There are several classes of programs that are delegated freeware, and this is one of them. Even the WinZip people (Venture Capital) wondered why no one ever paid for it. Every archiver has some good qualities, but for the most part, it's who is minimizing the poor quality features that appear to be the best.

If that's too cryptic, it's because I've been up almost 24 hours and my brain is drying out.

zridling

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #34 on: August 23, 2005, 07:32 AM »
Note that the freeware QuickZip was added to the list today (Tuesday, 23rd).

JeffK

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #35 on: August 23, 2005, 02:51 PM »
FWIW I use (and I think I like) ZipGenius.  I am looking forward to the review especially of Stuffit.

Regards,

Jeff

zridling

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #36 on: August 25, 2005, 09:33 AM »
ZipGenius has a lot of features, and StuffIt (ZipMagic) was most interesting, aggravating, and interesting again.

Cloq

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #37 on: September 04, 2006, 10:05 AM »
I am a proud user of winrar and have been using it for years.

90% of the time, I use the right click context menu.. Add to archive/Add to archive "xyz.rar" and Extract Here/Extract to XYZ\

Stuffit.. .bleh.  far too many problems ranging for hogging 100% cpu on idle to freezing the system. fun fun. ;D

zridling

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #38 on: September 10, 2006, 03:52 AM »
Thanks Cloq. I want to update this archive review sometime in 2007, or when significant upgrades have been made to a few of the top programs.

alxwz

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #39 on: December 16, 2006, 05:58 PM »
Zaine,

although both this thread and the last posts are somewhat dated, I just stumbled across your announcement to update the review and would like to add some remarks and suggestions.

I think it is important to not compare apples and oranges and make clear if you examine the archiving program or the archive format (or which combination of the two). And while I use WinRAR myself as my standard archiver (after using an older version of Squeez for years; I just dont like the colors of the new Squeez interface and happened to find a free copy of WinRAR 3.4 in a magazine), I think the review had some severe problems that unfairly favored WinRAR.

As we all know, the RAR format is proprietary, which sets it apart from formats like ZIP, 7z or SQX. Therefore no other archiver can legally create RAR archives. So IMO it's not a good idea to make RAR creation a criterion to judge packers.

Regarding RAR creation in Squeez and TugZip: Squeez can only create RAR 2 archives. Rarlabs changed both the archive format and the license (for the unpacker) with RAR 3 so it can't be reverse engineered anymore to create a packer (this is the same with the WinAce format support in Squeez). This incompatibility with recent RAR archives in some way defeats the purpose of RAR support in Squeez (RAR 2 archives are also less efficient than RAR 3 ones). BTW: (1) Rainer Nausedat, who reverse-engineered the RAR format for Squeez and invented the SQX format (which I like), unfortunately died in 2004. (2) There is also a free (for personal and educational use) version of Squeez called "ZipStar" that extracts (among others) and creates (only) ZIP (including ZIP64 and AES)  SQX, and CAB (see http://www.speedproj...e/zipstar/index.html). Maybe you could add ZipStar.
TugZip relies on RAR/WinRAR present on your machine. While it's a clever hack, it's hard to give all the credits for that to TugZip. Personally, I find TugZip's (even more than Squeez') interface annoying and bloated.

At least, RAR and 7z extraction and creation should be judged separately. 7z is an open source format that can freely be integrated into a packer, so those two formats should be clearly distinguished.

You may also want to have a look at an (overly?) ambitious comparison of archivers I came across  on http://www.rojakpot....x?artno=4&pgno=0 which has yet to deliver more than part 1 of 3.  The first part concentrated on "fast" settings and had the command-line packers gzip and arj32 (may I suggest adding those or is that too far off?) come out as efficiency kings, followed by WinZip. I liked their way to measure efficiency by KB saved / second.

Another solution worth of consideration might be to use a file manager as packer shell. Both Speed Commander (from the same company as Squeez) and Total Commander handle a lot of archiving formats (for text-only diehards, FAR also does that). TC can, via the MultiArc plugin, probably handle every archiver that can be controlled with the command line (I don't use MultiArc myself, I only used the SQX and CAB plugins for a while). That's very nice (and TC is the king of filesystem support as well).

Regards,
Alex

mouser

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #40 on: December 17, 2006, 01:32 AM »
very nice comments alex - until the review is updated at least we have the posts in this thread to supplement it  :Thmbsup:

katykaty

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #41 on: December 19, 2006, 03:59 PM »
I used to use TugZip before I switched to WinRAR about a year ago. Now if I could only remember what made me switch ...  :-[

zridling

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #42 on: June 25, 2007, 09:02 AM »
Alex, you're right on, and it's a fundamental weakness of the review. I hope by the end of the year to revisit and update the review. I've been waiting for another big round of upgrades, but this software category upgrades very slowly. So I might need an incremental approach. Again, thanks for your input, along with many others.

Niefer

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #43 on: June 25, 2007, 12:20 PM »
...just show me the contents of the archive and not distract me with other stuff.

yeah, just show and don't distract, and in this case 7z is the best.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2007, 12:24 PM by Niefer »

iphigenie

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #44 on: June 25, 2007, 05:07 PM »
my archive needs are simple and lately i have been using peazip - cute, simple, no install needed etc.

alxwz

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #45 on: June 26, 2007, 08:28 PM »
I'd like to add that the compression review I had mentioned under http://www.techarp.c...article.aspx?artno=4 has now been completed, and they also updated part 1, with findings that are significantly different from their former results. Go figure.

Anyway, that's probably not how a review of archivers should be done in the first place (only measuring compression and completely ignoring features, usability and the like). A more user-friendly perspective like Zaine had taken in the review here is clearly more reasonable.

And, yes, I have to confess that suggesting arj32 was probably a strange idea (but gzip is a different story).

I'm looking forward to the updated review, but Zaine probably deserves a rest after the huge word processor review he has done (great job!).

zridling

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #46 on: June 27, 2007, 12:18 AM »
Wow, thanks alxwz! Yea, I have to get in a manic, altered state to work on those reviews. I have an IV drip of liquid chocolate going right now to bulk up for a 'Best Archive Tools revision later this year. Once I hit 300, I'll sleep for a week, and then get to work. Oh, and thanks for the link. The Techarp review went nuts on the charts and graphs. I'm glad he took the time to tell us that media files that are already compressed (e.g., MP3) are "difficult to compress." Okay.

Maybe I'll go for a whole rewrite and reduce the number of apps. I use 7-Zip a lot and see a LOT of folks using PeaZip as iphigenie noted. I'm serious: if a software app can't perform, then it's really a waste of time to review it, telling everyone that it's bad in every imaginable way: You could install Ultra Crap Factor Pro on your system, but you'd be better off going with a nice fat Sasser worm.

You get the drift.

giorgiotani

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #47 on: September 14, 2007, 08:31 AM »
Hi, I have read archive tool comparison on DonationCoder and found it interesting, with a lot of interesting tips and hints about usability.
I too hope you will update the comparison with latest version of archivers, and I hope you may find PeaZip worthy of inclusion in this comparative review.
In this case please remember it's still a very young program (while other ones are definitely more mature programs) and it's undergoing active development; you can find latest releases of PeaZip and PeaZip_portable for Windows and Linux on SourceForge.

psionics

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #48 on: October 29, 2007, 09:57 AM »
I've been searching (weeks)for:
a explorer-like GUI of Self Package (SFX) where you can drag n' drop files into the archive.(or prompt for password).. the idea is to make it a self-container (the files and the application) for easy distribution of files.. similar to "fSekrit" notes.. making it portable..

The question is.. have you encountered anything like it? coz for me.. that would be the best..

Thanks

iphigenie

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Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions
« Reply #49 on: October 29, 2007, 04:08 PM »
peazip does something that seems to match your description, to me, but i could misunderstand

edit: actually at the moment i cannot make this work, it might say "add to self extracting..." but it creates one file per file :S
« Last Edit: October 29, 2007, 04:24 PM by iphigenie »