So I then did a little digging around on MakeUseOf for free unzip programs that support the format and stumbled upon a 7Zip, an open-source file compression/extraction program which supports a multitude of compression formats.

Although there is also a IZArc which MakeUseOf recently recommended in its 15 Must-Have Free Software Programs I still decided to go with 7zip. While both seem to be rather popular among techies, I went ahead with 7zip mainly for its high compression ratio.

7Zip – How To

So in this article I’m going to get down to basics and show you how to extract and compress files that aren’t of the common variety.

First, download and install the free unzip program, 7Zip, from here.

After it has installed, start up the program from ‘All Programs’ under the start menu. The home screen should look like the screenshot below.

Extraction

Your first step is to locate the file you want to extract.

Normally, after you install 7Zip it should automatically recognize supported archive formats and integrate extract options to Windows context menus. When you right click on the file, there should be a 7Zip option.

Clicking on one of the Extract options will extract the files form the archive.

OR

Alternatively, you can just run 7Zip directly and open the archive from the program interface. You can either paste the file location into the text entry box or browse for it using the icons shown at the bottom part of the above screenshot. Once you have located your file, click on it once. This will highlight it. Then, press the minus sign ( – ) in the menu bar across the top. The window below will open.

Fill out the details below including where you want the extracted file to go and a password (if any). Then select ‘OK’. It shouldn’t take too long to extract and once it does your file will be ready and waiting for you beside the original compressed file provided you didn’t specify another output location.

Compression

Compression follows along much the same lines as extraction. Navigate to the file you want to compress within the 7Zip window and highlight it. Then click the plus sign (+) up in the top left hand corner. The window below will appear.

Enter in the information such as compression level, compression method and password. Then click ‘OK’. Now the compressed file will be beside the original file.

A bit more on compression. 7Zip offers a compression ratio that is about 10% better than WinZip. Moreover, by compressing a file into its native 7z format, you can achieve a compression ratio up to 70% higher than the zip format.

7Zip supports many other formats for extraction and compression. Some the main ones are listed here:

• Extracting and Compressing: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
• Extracting Only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.

To conclude, 7Zip will take care of most of your extracting/compression needs when your standard extractor isn’t up the the task. And unlike many of its competitors it’ll do the job for free!

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But which software is the way to go? In the sea of (free) software, which tool does its job best?

We decided to check it out, and present you the best free archiving applications on the market. Read on to see the best extraction program, the application with the tightest compression and the multi-platform topper.

Universal Extractor – Best Extraction Program

With over 50 supported file formats, Universal Extractor, or UniExtract, is the obvious winner when looking for extraction software. Whether you want to view the contents of a RAR file, an EXE, or even a dbx-file.

Universal Extractor uses an algorithm to determine the given filetype. Only if this does not yield any results does it resort to the filename, so you shouldn’t have any problems with wrongly named files.

You can use the File/Destination GUI as depicted in the first screenshot, or the right-click context menu to quickly extract all your files. Universal Extracter has a simple, superficial interface, and that’s good thing.

If you want to read more about Universal Extractor, Mark wrote a more extended article about it late 2007.

Universal Extractor is available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista

KGB Archiver – Tightest Compression

KGB Archiver is an application with an insane, perhaps even the all-time highest compression rate. To achieve this, KGB Archiver deploys its PAQ6, or more recently PAQ7 compression algorithm.

Tested with Calgary Corpus, a 6MB package famous for compression algorithm testing, KGB Archiver manages to reach a stunning compress ratio of 19.8%. Compare this to the maximum RAR compression (24.0%) and 7zip ultra compression (26.1%), and I think we’ve got ourselves a winner. More test results can be found here.

Although KGB Archiver is mostly just a compression tool (it can make KGB and ZIP files), it’s the perfect companion for Universal Extractor. Get the tightest compressions out of KGB Archiver, and decompress everything using Universal Extractor, even the previously made KGB files!

KGB Archiver is currently available for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista

7-Zip – Multi Platform Topper

If this one were to be missing from the list, I’d probably get lynched. And for a good reason that is. Over the years 7-Zip has made quite a name for itself across, and although it doesn’t support as many files as Universal Extractor, or has a compression rate as high as KGB Archiver, it gets the job done.

This open-source application works under a simple interface, but hides a very advanced toolbox. It runs light on memory and, well, just feels clean.

7-Zip File Manager is available on Windows/Mac/Linux.

So what do you think? Perhaps you prefer IZArc, or TugZIP. Tell us which applications are on top of your list, and why.

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We believe we’ve found a completely free file compressor extractor app (alternative to WinZip) called ZipItFree.

Why ZipItFree?

Besides the fact that (as it states it in its name) this app is free there are no annoying and irritating registrations or fees to pay. As soon as you unzip a file you have full control of functions through a modern and stylish graphical user interface while also being able to enjoy the benefits of its speed as well.

Decompressing files is even easier (as it should be) then zipping them up. All you have to do is open your ZipItFree file and locate the extraction button and click it. Your extraction should instantly begin.

The method of file compression this app uses is many times referred to as the “Black Hole” by developers because of its extremely high compression ratios and mega-fast decompression.

Another reason this desktop app (compatible with Windows versions NT-Vista) can be placed at the top of fellow similar software is its ability to utilize ZipV2 encryption algorithms to archive contents within a zipped file. This has been classified as over 100 times more secure than AES encryption algorithms (used by several un-zipping apps).

Our Journey Ends

ZipItFree handles several different formats with ease and allows you to leave comments on your archives describing what that specific archive contains so that you don’t have to unzip every file every single time you may be searching for something.

A few things that could be fixed on this fairly new app would be the support of additional formats, for now ZipItFree can support a wide variation of files; however, it still does not support all formats. The only other con I came across is that although the encryption method is substantially strong, it still may not be enough for everyone. It would be a much stronger app if it were able to somehow allow app users to choose stronger and better encryption methods totally dependent on their needs.

Here are a few files that ZipItFree easily supports: ACE, ARC, BH, BZip, CAB, GZIP, JAR, LHA, RAR, TAR, UUE, XXE, ZIP, and Zoo.

What file compressor/extractor do you use? Let us know in comments.

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One thing though, before you upload that video of yours, it is important to get it compressed to the smallest possible size so that your movie can be more easily watched by people over the Web. Luckily, you do not need to be a tech guru to be able to compress your video files. If you are using Windows XP and above (excluding Windows 7), you already have a great tool in your Start menu that allows you to compress video files for web easily – Windows Movie Maker.

For some reasons, if your computer does not come with the Window Movie Maker, you can download it from the Microsoft website for a price of FREE.

In this tutorial, I am going to illustrate how you can compress a video file for web to half its size with Windows Movie Maker.

As seen for the screenshot below, the video file that I used for this tutorial is of size 61.8MB. Let’s see how much we are able to compress by the end of this tutorial.

Open up your Windows Movie Maker. Click on the Import Video link on the left pane.

Select the video file that you want to compress and import it into Windows Movie Maker.

Drag the movie to the timeline.

If you want to edit and add effects to your movie, you are free to carry on. If not, proceed on by going to File->Save Movie File.

Select a location in your computer.

When it comes to the Movie Setting page, check the box “Other settings” and select “Video for broadband (340 Kbps)” in the dropdown option.

Alternatively, you can also choose the Video for broadband (512 Kbps) options, which mean the video will be streamed at a higher bitrate (and a bigger file size).

Click Next to start compressing the video file. It will take sometime while the Movie Maker compresses and saves the video file.

The Result

The following image is the screenshot of the video file after compression. You can see that there is a whopping 64% reduction in the video files.

Conclusion

To say the truth, Windows Movie Maker is nowhere comparable to a professional video editor software. However, taking into account that not everyone is a tech guru, Windows Movie Maker has done a great job in simplifying the process of compressing video file for web and make it easy for almost everyone to use.

As can be seen from the tutorial above, it is VERY easy to compress a video for the web and the result is impressive. Best of all, it comes preinstalled in your computer, so there is no need to search, download and install. Though it is not the best, i don’t have much complaint about it.

What about you?

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There were many tweaks invented in order to survive the snail-like internet connection speed in the past. Some were just bogus tricks to make the user feel it was going faster, others went further by optimizing the data traffic to make the most of the limited ability.

But that was then and this is now. With today’s amazing connection speeds, those tweaks are part of net history. While the bogus tricks are best kept buried, the others might still be useful today. Not only for those unfortunate users who are still connected to the internet through the dial-up modem slow lane, but also for the fortunate ones on DSL connections.

One of the still useful old tricks is Toonel.

The Compression Tunnel

Chances are normal internet users today have never heard of Toonel. Further development of this tiny multi-platform java-based application has been stopped since 2006.

So what benefit can an unknown and (almost) abandoned application from the past give you? Here’s what the site says:

“toonel.net is an experiment in a technique for conserving network bandwidth. If you are paying a fee based on the amount of data you transfer (e.g. 3G/GPRS/DSL/CDMA) and have a monthly download limit, or if you have narrowband connection (e.g. dialup modem) then you are most likely to appreciate the service toonel.net offers. There are a number of toonel.net client application packages. All solutions are 100% Java based and therefore this service can be used on any platform with an installed Java Runtime Environment, including mobile phones.”

Toonel – a pun for tunnel – does its job by compressing all the data traffic transferred to and from our machine. Smaller data sizes means shorter querying and loading times. Whatever connection pricing types we use – data based or time based – this method will result in cheaper billing.

However, the result of the compression will depend on several factors:

• The type of data (text, image, audio, video, or others)
• The type of connection protocol (ftp, wap, http, https, and such)
• User preferences

Other than compressing, Toonel also re-routes the traffic to a third party proxy server in an unknown location. This method will result in even faster and more secure data traffic.

To use Toonel, the only thing you have to do is change the proxy settings of your computer – or your browser, if you want to use Toonel just for that specific browser – to 127.0.0.1 port 8080. And make sure that Toonel is running.

The complete tutorial on how to change the settings can be found here.

One usage idea

Personally, I use Toonel for anonymous surfing. I have set Flock to use Toonel to connect to the net, and Firefox and Safari to use direct connections. This way I can simultaneously have two different proxies connected from my machine at the same time. Very useful to test my blog from two different points of view – admin and visitor.

But maybe you can find other uses of Toonel? Tell everybody using the comments below.

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The image to the left was graciously provided by Roma Flowers via stock.xchng.

1. Unclutter

Remove excess software through >start >control panel >software. If something won’t uninstall because it was never installed properly in the first place, try Microsoft’s Windows Installer CleanUp Utility.

For one, unused software takes up space which you might want to use differently. What you should also keep in mind is that outdated software poses a potential risk, possibly harboring security holes that may serve as entry points for malware.

2. Clean up

Installing and uninstalling software will leave traces. To get rid of the junk, clean the registry and delete all left over files. A great tool for this is CCleaner, which has been mentioned many times at Make Use Of, and which will take care of many more nasty problems.

3. Clear & Compress

One quick and easy step to empty the recycle bin, remove temporary files and compress rarely used files, free space and remove junk!

- Click [Windows] + [R], the Run dialog box will open.
- Type “Cleanmgr.exe” (without brackets), another dialog box will pop up.
- Select the drive you wish to clean.
- Wait for the application to complete its calculations.
- Select files you wish to clear and actions you wish to take.
- Click >OK to confirm and let it do its job.

4. Control Autostart Programs

Lots of tools insert themselves into the Autostart folder or boot process, but many of them just eat up resources without ever being of any use whatsoever. A free tool which allows you to control which programs run when you’re booting your system is Startup Control Panel.

5. Defrag

Defragmentation is a process which physically reorganizes data written onto a disk. The goal is to not have gaps between pieces of a file, but rather store them contiguously. This is something you best do when you won’t need your machine for a few hours. Overnight is a good idea.

You can defrag your hard drives as follows:

- Go to >Start >Programs >Accessories >System Tools >Disk Defragmenter
- The defragmentation window will open.
- Click >Analyze to see whether a defrag is necessary.
- Choose the volume you wish to defrag and click >Defragment.

What many people don’t know is that you cannot only defrag hard drives, you can also defrag the registry! For the registry defragmentation however you will need a tool, for example Free Registry Defrag.

MakeUseOf did a good article on Five Free Programs to Defragment your PC. Definitely check it out.

Finally: Speed Logoff

Is your system taking ages to shut down? Chances are it’s waiting for files that seem blocked by a faulty program or driver. It takes ages, i.e. a long internal timeout, until Windows forces the handle to unload. Microsoft provides a tool called User Profile Hive Cleanup Service which can speed up this process.

For more information on how to spruce up an old installation, make it faster and safer, please check out these great Make Use Of articles:

The Cut Out and Keep Guide to Essential Software Programs by Mark O’Neill

10 Quick Fixes to Make your Windows Computer Faster by Shankar Ganesh

Best Programs To Keep Your Computer Secure by Will Mueller

Needless to say, you should ALWAYS keep virus and malware protection updated, and it’s recommendable to repeat steps 1 through 5 on a more regular basis than just once a year.

What’s your routine? Do you have a more radical attitude and actually enjoy a fresh installation once a year? Please give us your feedback.

(By) This post was written by one of our regular authors, Tina from Recommended.

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