What is the best alternative to Ark?

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score 160 · Answer 1

7-Zip

Top Pro

Free and open source

7-Zip is licensed under GNU LGPL, and the *.7z format has support across all major operating systems. There should be no trouble opening the archives under any operating system, and no need to deal with messages bugging you to register or pay for the app. Source code can be found here. See More

Top Con

GUI looks dated

Could use a new fresh user interface. See More

Top Pro

High compression .7z format

Their own file format .7z that ships with 7-Zip is one of the best compression formats. 7z file format is usually more compact than Zip. See More

Top Con

XZ/LZMA2 format inadequate for long-term archiving

LZMA2 is unsafe and less efficient than the original LZMA. Use: 7Z LZMA Non-Solid, RAR 5 LZSS/PPMd Non-Solid, or ZIP Deflate. See here. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Starts quickly. See More

Top Con

Does not support data recovery

It's not possible with 7-zip to add data recovery records to the archive which could repair minor integrity errors. See More

Top Pro

Explorer right-click menu integration

Makes it easy to open any archive file, or create new archives, without having to go open another program first. See More

Top Pro

Very fast compression/decompression

7z is muli-threaded, allowing it to do very fast compression and decompression. See More

Top Pro

Unobtrusive

No nag screen. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Unix-like (only CLI)

License:LGPL-2.1-or-later

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score 2 · Answer 2

Xarchiver

Top Pro

Can show a file list without loading the whole archive

For 7zip-files (perhaps other types too) while File Roller cannot do this. See More

Top Con

Segfaults when creating large archives

When creating large archives it crashes and doesn't show you any helpful message (unless you started it from the terminal you will get something like "[1] 14858 segmentation fault (core dumped) xarchiver"). See More

Top Con

Doesn't show a progress UI while it's creating an archive

You have to "guess" when it's done. See More

Top Con

Not in active development

Xarchiver has only one maintainer and it seems he's not working on it actively. See More

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score 1 · Answer 3

7zFM

Top Pro

Multiplatform

it is available for windows and UNIX-like systems. See More

Top Con

Made for 7z

might not support all features from other file formats. See More

Top Pro

p7zip-gui is the official GUI for 7z

It is made for 7z but it can also unpack other files. See More

Specs

License:LGPL-2.1-or-later

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