MakeUseOf » extraction

How To Extract Links For Mass Image Or File Downloads With JDownloader

Craig Snyder — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 01:31:16 +0000

We’ve published lots of articles about download managers here at MakeUseOf. FlashGet, Free Download Manager, and Download Accelerator plus are some of the favorites among Windows users. DownThemAll is usually the pick when we’re going for a mass downloader compatible with our favorite browser. One that we’ve yet to feature is JDownloader. Some would say that it’s for the more advanced user, but it’s quickly becoming my favorite.

To help you guys fall in love with this little tool, I’m here to show you how to use JDownloader, in conjunction with a free and simple web tool, to mass download images or other files from open directories and websites.

In this example, I’ll be using an open directory that I found over at /r/opendirectories on Reddit. That’s a great little spot to find downloadable content in ridiculous amounts. From there, I’ve managed to find an open directory full of sound effects. Let’s check out one with sound effects for animals and birds (this link may be dead before you’re able to get to it, so a screenshot is below).

We’re hoarders and we want it all. The next step is to go to Webmaster Toolkit’s Link Extractor. This unique little tool will extract the links and images of any website you push through. Let’s copy and paste the open directory’s URL here. Since they’re links, we are extracting HREFs, not IMGs. IMGs would be used for extracting images. Those results should show up as displayed below.

Copy all of the results, excluding the last one. The last one is the parent directory link, which is basically one folder up in the directory. For anyone downloading from many open directories, you’ll always want to exclude the last result. Even if you include it though, you’ll just be downloading a single HTML webpage, so it’s not a big deal. Make sure the results are copied to your clipboard.

Your next step is to download JDownloader and get it running.

Now let’s select where you’ll be saving the files to. Click on the Settings tab and you should see the following.

After you’ve selected your directory, click the Linkgrabber tab. The Linkgrabber is basically JDownloader’s built-in system for checking the validity of links. That way, you won’t be attempting to download 404 pages or files that do not exist. It’s a good middleman between you and getting the files you want. Near the bottom left of this window, click Add URL(s). You should then see the following.

JDownloader has attempted to pull the list of URLs we copied from your clipboard, but for some reason the application seems to handle URLs with spaces incorrectly. Links should not include spaces, anyway.

Let’s bring up Notepad now. Paste your list of URLs. From the Edit menu, click Replace…. In the Find what: field, you want to put in a space. In the Replace with field, you want to enter “%20″ (without quotes). %20 is the hexidecimal value for a space. Then click Replace All. It should then replace all spaces with the hexidecimal value, and you’ll see an awful lot of them in your list. Don’t worry, that means it worked (you do not need to include this step in the process for websites without spaces in links, which is the case 99% of the time).

Now we want to copy that list of URLs. Delete the single line in the JDownloader list and paste our new list. JDownloader then proceeds to check every file in the list and gives you a total download size.

Now, click the play button at the top to start your downloads. You’ll be automatically switched to the Downloads tab and you’ll be able to monitor your download progress. Your files are now downloading!

Remember, using the link extractor you can extract HREFs or IMGs. If you have a particular page, forum thread, or other website filled with images you want to save, you can use this exact same process.

If you need any help or have any other questions regarding this little method, feel free to drop a line in the comments. JDownloader is for more advanced users (in my opinion) and further unassisted configuration can get a little tricky. I’m here to help.

Why RAR Is Better Than ZIP & The Best RAR Software Available

Justin Pot — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:01:32 +0000

RAR files are smaller, easier to split and easier to recover than ZIP files. These three features mean RAR files are better than ZIP, even though ZIP files are far more common.

If you use the Internet often then, in all likelihood, you’ve more than once downloaded a ZIP file. A ZIP is basically a compressed folder you can download as a single file. A lot of free software is offered in ZIP files. Use the Internet a little longer, though, and you will stumble upon a few RAR files. A RAR is, in many ways, similar to a ZIP. It is a single file containing multiple files, but unlike ZIP files you need special software to open RAR files.

Why doesn’t everyone just use ZIP? Well, because in many ways RAR is better than ZIP.

RAR Is Awesome Because…

The main reason people use RAR is because of the compression rate. Overall, RAR files are smaller than ZIP files, meaning they don’t take as long to upload or download.

Don’t believe me? Check out these ZIP versus RAR tests. You’ll notice higher compression in general, particularly for media files.

The lower the percentage, the better the compression.

Another nice thing about RAR files is that they can be split into multiple pieces. What does this mean? Well, you could split a large file into two or more different RAR files. This is handy if you need to store a very large file on CDs or other small disks.

WinRAR also supports the creation of recovery files, which are very handy in the event of a failing hard drive. To take advantage of this, all you need is to create a .REV file when you’re compressing. If (God forbid) something goes wrong this will increase the chances of you recovering your compressed information.

ZIP Is Still A Good Idea When…

ZIP still beats RAR in one key way, though. ZIP works, by default, on pretty much any computer on earth. Windows, Mac and Linux all support ZIP out of the box, meaning you you can send a ZIP file to a friend who doesn’t know much about computers and he will still be able to open it. Send that friend a RAR file though, and you might end up providing technical support over the phone.

Software For Opening & Creating RAR Files

Want to get started with RAR files? Here’s the best software for the job.

If you’re a Windows user, WinRAR is probably the first program you should check out. I can create and open RAR files, but be warned, it isn’t free. There’s a trial, but after that you need to pay $30 to keep using the software.

WinRAR only works for Windows, but don’t worry, you can download the command line-only program RAR to run on Mac and Linux. It can create and open RAR files, but like WinRAR, it is not free.

Looking for something free? Check out 7ZIP, which supports a number of formats including RAR. Be aware though that it can open, but not create, RAR files.

If 7Zip isn’t to your tastes, check out PeaZip, a great alternative to WinRAR and WinZip. Again, sadly, it cannot create RAR files, only open them. It features an easy user interface:

Both those programs work best for Windows and Linux. Want something for Mac? The Unarchiver is a replacement for the built-in Mac unzipping program, and supports opening RAR files. Again, creating RAR files is not supported – you need to use the official RAR program for that.

Find more WinRAR alternatives on MakeUseOf Answers.

Conclusion

Which format to use is obviously up to you, but now you know why RAR is better than ZIP and what the best RAR software available is.

Do you disagree with me? Let me know why below. Also feel free to pitch in with alternatives programs for creating and opening RAR files, because I know I can learn from you.

How To Compile & Install TAR GZ & TAR BZ2 Files In Ubuntu Linux

Tim Brookes — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 23:31:16 +0000

Unlike Windows, installing software in Linux has the potential to be slightly more complicated. Unless your chosen software is already in package form or resides in a repository and can be installed with a simple line of text, the chances are you’re going to need to compile and install from a .TAR.GZ or .TAR.BZ2 file.

This can be a nightmare, but if you stick to the rules it shouldn’t be. If you’ve got a pesky archive that needs installing, the following method will create a package, install said package and provide a nice clean way to remove the software afterwards via your package manager. Command lines at the ready, deep breath please…

Tarballs Of Steel

A .TAR.GZ/BZ2 file is a compressed tarball (the uncompressed extension being .TAR) which contains the raw source code for your chosen application. Installation requires these files to be compiled, processed and linked in a way that Ubuntu can then execute the program.

The tarball format was standardised in 1988 (and again in 2001) and continues to be widely used on both Linux and Windows for the distribution of software. Originally tarballs were designed to facilitate the backup of data onto tape devices, not that you’ll be doing that.

If you’ve not used the Linux command line before there’s no need to worry, the commands are straight-forward and cohesive. We also have an article that should get you up to speed with the Linux command line which will probably help you out if you’re going to be spending a lot of time there.

Preparing Your System

You’ll need to install a package called build-essential for creating the package from source and checkinstall to add it to your package manager for easy removal. This can be done quickly via the console, simply open up Terminal (Applications, Accessories, Terminal) and type:

sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall

Allow time for these to download and install, and once done you may also want to install version management software for upgrades, though you can always do this later. In any case, these three will do the trick:

sudo apt-get install subversion git-core mercurial

Next you’ll want a common directory to use when building these packages. You can technically put this anywhere, as long as it is writeable. The official Ubuntu documentation recommends

/usr/local/src

so we’ll stick with that:

sudo chown $USER /usr/local/src

Then make sure it’s writeable:

sudo chmod u+rwx /usr/local/src

Finally we’ll also install apt-file, which is used to resolve any dependency issues you encounter:

sudo apt-get install apt-file

You’ll probably get a pop-up telling you need to update apt-file, if not run the following command and let it finish:

sudo apt-file update

Once you’ve done this, you’ll never need to do it again as your system will be prepared for any tarballs you throw at it.

Extract & Configure

Assuming you’ve already downloaded a mysterious .TAR.GZ file you’re first going to need to move it to your designated build folder (I used

/usr/local/src

). You can do this with your normal file browser, and once done, open up a new Terminal.

Change to the build folder by typing:

cd /usr/local/src

Next extract the archive. For .TAR.GZ files type:

tar -xzvf .tar.gz

And for .TAR.BZ2 files type:

tar -xjvf .tar.bz2

If all went well you’ll see a long list of extracted files, like in the screenshot above. Don’t close the Terminal yet, we’re not done.

It is at this point I urge you to navigate to the folder your archive just created (with your usual file browser) and open either README or INSTALL should the files exist. If your particular software requires a different method to the one I’m about to go into then this file will hold the key. You can save yourself a lot of hassle by doing this.

You may also be able to choose different install options depending on the software, and the INSTALL or README will stipulate what these are. The files may have no extension, but are plain text and should open in Gedit or any text editor you choose.

As a general rule, the following commands will install your software with the default installation method.

Your tarball will have been extracted to a folder with the same name as the file, so change to this folder with the cd command you used earlier, like so:

cd /usr/local/src/

Replace with the name of the folder the archive created. Next you’ll need to configure the source files by typing:

./configure

Note: If your software does not have a configure file, you might want to try skipping straight to the Build & Install section of this article, though consult your INSTALL or README documentation first.

If you receive an error message related to autoconf, then you’ll need to install it by typing:

sudo apt-get install autoconf

Then run

./configure

again.

This command will verify whether you have all the installed packages required to use your software. You can use apt-file which you installed earlier to fill in the blanks.

If you do receive an error (something like

configure: error: Library requirements ... not met

) have a look for the file not found above the error message, then using apt-file search by typing:

apt-file search .

This will tell you which package the file you require is in, so you can download it using:

sudo apt-get install

This won’t necessarily always happen, but it is very useful if you don’t have the required dependencies.

When you’re satisfied you’ve got the packages (if you needed any) run the

./configure

command again.

If all went well you’ll see

config.status: creating Makefile

““ congratulations, you’re very nearly there! Lots of people give up before they get to this point, but you’re better than that.

Build & Install

Into the same Terminal window type:

make

Sit back, grab a coffee and breathe for a second. Depending on the size of your install this can take a while.

Now you can install the program with the following command:

sudo checkinstall

Follow the on-screen prompts, add a description for your software and hit Enter on this screen:

If everything went well you’ll see Installation Successful. Pat yourself on the back. You’ve done well.

Your software should now be installed to

/usr/local/bin

and you’ll be able to run it from there without any problems.

Did you make it all the way through? Isn’t it easier just waiting for a package or getting it from the repositories? Maybe you found it… easy? Let us know in the comments.

How To Extract ISO Files With Linux

Tim Brookes — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:30:46 +0000

You’ve probably downloaded an image file before, and there’s a good chance it used the popular .ISO file extension. These (usually quite large) files are essentially digital optical media, and all files contained within that media are wrapped up into the .ISO archive.

Unlike Windows, Linux has built-in support for mounting and manipulating image files. This means you don’t necessarily need third party software in order to access .ISO archives and the files contained within.

There are in fact a couple of ways of going about this, so you can choose a method which suits you.

ISO ISO Baby

The image file format has been a popular way of distributing software online since broadband speeds allowed us to do so. Chances are you installed your Linux distribution using an .ISO file, possibly one you prepared in good old Windows.

The .ISO file format simply archives the contents of an optical media disc using the ISO 9660 file system. It is also possible for these images to use the UDF (Universal Disc Format) file system in some cases. The data within the archive is uncompressed, and an .ISO image can be made from any optical media ““- CD, DVD, HD-DVD (remember those?), BluRay and so on.

It is not possible to use the .ISO file format to create an image of an audio CD as these do not use a computer filesystem. In these cases .BIN/.CUE image combinations are often preferred.

If you want to gain access to the files within an .ISO archive, first you’re going to need to mount it. You can either opt for the command-line method or you can use a program with a graphical interface if you’re not fond of text-based commands.

Some distributions may have provided software so you can extract via the right click menu. Before starting out, find your .ISO image, right click and look for the Extract Here option. You might just be pleasantly surprised!

Extracting an .ISO Using the Command Line

This isn’t as hard as it sounds, it’s just a matter of getting the syntax right in the command. First you’ll need to create a folder in which to mount the image, open your command line editor and enter:

sudo mkdir /mnt/iso

Enter you password when asked, and your directory will be created. Now we can mount the file by typing:

sudo mount -o loop .iso /mnt/iso

Replace with the location of your .ISO file, for example I mounted a file in my Downloads folder using

sudo mount -o loop /home/tim/Downloads/image1.iso /mnt/iso

Now you can navigate to the folder you created and access the files within the .ISO. If you want to grab the whole lot via the command line, you can copy the contents of the folder by typing:

sudo cp -r /mnt/iso /home/tim/Documents

This command would copy the whole lot to a separate “iso” folder in my Documents folder. The

-r

option instructs the operation to copy recursively, which includes folder contents.

You don’t necessarily need to do this of course, as once you have mounted it you can use your file manager to pick and choose the bits you want.

Note: If the command used here to mount your .ISO fails, you might want to also try:

mount -o loop -t iso9660 .iso /mnt/iso

Extracting an .ISO Using Software

If the command line isn’t for you, there’s a couple of applications that mount and allow you to extract image files. They’re all free, as is the case with most Linux software.

Gmount-ISO

A simple graphical interface for the GTK+ environment that allows you to mount .ISO files in a directory of your choice. Input the path to your .ISO in the Image File field and the folder in which you’d like to display the contents in the Mount Point field.

Then simply click Mount and the contents of your image will appear in the directory that you specified.

Ubuntu and other distributions that use Synaptic can install via the command-line:

sudo apt-get install gmountiso

AcetoneISO

With support for a variety of image formats including .ISO, .BIN, .MDF and .NRG AcetoneISO is another powerful graphical interface for mounting and extracting.

AcetoneISO allows you to specify a folder in which your image files are located, or you can just choose Mount and point AcetoneISO to the right file.

Ubuntu and other distributions that use Synaptic can install via the command-line:

sudo apt-get install acetoneiso

Do you have any favourite image mounting programs? Do you use the command line method or a GUI? Let us know in the comments!

How To Extract Images From Video Files With ImageGrab

Matt Smith — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:31:30 +0000

If you’re like me, you usually try to grab images from video files by simply hitting the pause button and then using the ALT-Printscreen shortcut to copy-and-paste the image to my image editor. That works fine, but it isn’t exactly a precise science.

People who are talking or moving in a video clip look fine as long as the action is rolling, but as soon as the video is paused the people on screen tend to look really, really odd. Mouths caught moving in mid-sentence cause even the most handsome actors and most beautiful actresses pull some pretty funny faces.

So how do you defeat this problem?

One solution is the use of ImageGrab. As I’ll show you, ImageGrab makes it possible to snap multiple images from a video clip at one go. This lets you sort through them and find the one that is most flattering.

Funny Faces

To demonstrate the problem I ripped my copy of The Big Lebowski to my computer and picked a popular scene – Walter pulling the gun at the bowling alley (be warned: the movie is rated R).

What’s going on here? Is Walter really angry? Or did someone just step on his toe? If you’ve watched the movie you’ll know that the character has a pretty serious face throughout this scene, but trying to capture Walter’s expression by pausing, fast-forwarding and rewinding through the video is tedious.

A Better Way

That’s where ImageGrab comes in. This program makes it possible to proceed forward or backward through a movie frame-by-frame or capture multiple frames in a row. The program’s functionality isn’t difficult to learn.

First you need to open the video file you’d like to capture an image or images of. The file opens in the ImageGrab main window with a progress bar below the movie pane. You can use this bar to move to any point in the video you’d like. In my case I’m going to move the bar until I’ve found the same funny face as before.

Now that I’m in the ballpark, I can move backwards or forwards through the video using the rewind and fast-forward buttons to the left and right of the Play button. You can move frame-by-frame, in increments of one second or increments of one minute. In this instance I only had to rewind by three frames in order to find the image that I wanted.

There! Walter now looks much more intimidating. Now that I have the frame I want, I can save it by clicking the Extract Image button, which is located on the toolbar at the top of the program. It is the fifth button from the left. Alternatively, you can just hit the shortcut key (F5). By default the image will save as a .bmp to your Pictures folder, but you can change it by opening the image extraction options (ALT-F).

Capturing Multiple Images

Capturing a movie frame-by-frame is fine if you just want a screenshot, but what if you want to capture multiple images from video at once?

That’s easy. Play the movie in ImageGrab and then, when you reach the scene you’d like to capture, simply hold down your F5 key. If you receive a prompt asking if you’d like to copy over a previous file click the Yes to All option.

A frame-by-frame output of the video you’re viewing will be captured for as long as you hold down the F5 key. This is a useful way to generate images that can later be turned into an animated .GIF file.

Conclusion

ImageGrab isn’t the only way to capture an image from a movie, but it is one of the easier methods I’ve used. If you have a favorite program for this task, please let us know about it in the comments.

7Zip – A Free Program to Unzip Uncommon Archive Formats

Dean Sherwin — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:00:46 +0000

The other day I downloaded a .RAR file. I saw them here and there but to my surprise never extracted one in the past. I really needed the app which I found in Mark’s article here to take a screenshot of my cell phone for another article.

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.

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!

How to Convert A PDF to Text With Text Extractor

Karl L. Gechlik — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:01:13 +0000

So you have some important data all caught up in a PDF file. A PDF is a document that has been committed to its format and most likely cannot be opened for editing or copying unless the author has allowed that.

How do you convert that PDF to text? You could print it and try and scan it back into your machine using a free OCR software or you could grab this awesome little application called PDF Text Extractor.

We have covered several applications for retrieving data from the confines of a PDF document but this application concentrates on the text. If that is what you need ““ your text and nothing but the text – then this is the program for you.

Let’s take a look at it and how it can convert a PDF to text.

I started by downloading and installing the program. It was a quick process and the MSI installer file was about 1.13 megabytes. When I ran the application this is what I saw:

This is a really easy layout and graphical user interface ““ simply select the PDF you would like to convert to plain text. Then you select the folder you want the converted plain text file written to. You can type in a full path for each or hit the button next to the blank field to browse.

When you are ready your window will look something like this:

Now our PDF document that contained our text ““ the text that we need to reformat and put into a manual is in a file. That file looks like this before we begin:

7 full pages of text, text and more text. That would be a lot of typing for poor Betty our departments secretary. So I went Googling and found our little application. I fired it up and hit that magic convert button. Literally it took 2 seconds and then a window popped up that said it was complete:

I went looking in my d:\ drive for the file. I actually realized I had no idea what it was called or what the extension would be. I sorted the files by date created and found what i was looking for:

I opened the text file up and as you can see above the files name seems to always be TextFile.txt. The contents of the text file were just that”¦.all of the text that I needed! Yeah!

This is what I saw:

My formatting was not 100% there but all of the glorious text was and now it is a just a matter of copying, pasting and formatting. Nowhere near as big of a job as it was before! And we do not need Adobe Acrobat Reader, Writer or any other nonsense on our machine. Just this little application and a PDF file. You can open the text file in Word, Notepad++, Wordpad or whatever your favorite editor is.

How do you extract text from a PDF? We would love to hear about it in the comments!

Download: Text Extractor

The Top 3 File Compression & Extraction Softwares

Simon Slangen — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:00:40 +0000

Whether you’re tight on space, or need to send an enormous quantity of files, archiving software is the way to go. These days, not using an archiving suite is almost unthinkable, and it’s one of the first things you should download when you reinstall your operation system.

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.

Quick Zip File Compressor & Extractor (Free WinZip Alternative)

Joel Reyes — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 17:00:20 +0000

For quite some time now there haven’t been many free apps that could be said to rival or go up against the giant file zipping and compressing giant, WinZip. This is determined in the apps ability to compress or decompress files with substantial power and extraction speeds.

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.

Open any compressed file with Universal Extractor

Aibek Esengulov — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 22:35:33 +0000

Today’s recommended tool is one which I have been using for only a week but I am already hooked because it is a tool which I have been looking for for a long time and it works extremely well. I was convinced for a long time that such a tool was out there somewhere and I finally found it, courtesy of the great StumbleUpon.

Universal Extractor is a freeware open-source tool which can extract files quickly and efficiently from any type of archive. It can be something as simple as a “zip” file or “rar” file, or perhaps you want to study the contents of an “exe” set-up file or a Microsoft “msi” installer file. By using Universal Extractor, all the files will be brought out of the chosen archive and placed in a folder for you to peruse. This is especially good if you want to examine the source code of a program but it is tucked away inside an executable “exe” program. UE can get it out for you.

As the program creator himself points out on his webpage, this is not meant to be a replacement for more conventional archiving programs such as WinRAR or WinZip. You can’t compress files with Universal Extractor as you could with something like 7-Zip. All you can do with UE is “un-compress” and extract the files. But that in itself is magnificent as these days, the number of compressed file formats are increasing. ISO files seem to be getting more and more popular as well as “tar”, “gz”, “jar” and especially Mozilla Firefox’s “xpi” format which is used for browser extensions.

Instead of having several programs for several file formats, you can now scrap them all and have the one program to open all your compressed files – Universal Extractor.

What I particularly like is that it integrates itself into the Windows Explorer right-click menu so just by right-clicking on the relevant file, you can immediately fire up the UE program.

After only a week, I can already tell this program is a keeper. It works like it’s supposed to, doesn’t cause any problems and its usefulness factor is sky-high. I’m sure you’ll like it too.

Mark O’Neill is a freelance writer, editor and blogger. Check out his blog at http://www.betterthantherapy.net