WinRAR vs Zip vs 7zip vs Others

[Archer]

I'm not sure about WinRAR's crypto. It's a proprietary software and I don't remember anyone checking it for some bugs/backdoors. On the other hand 7zip is opensource and thus more preferable in respect to crypto. Besides its crypto was checked by one guy who knows a thing or two in crypto stuff.

[DARKER]

Originally Posted by Archer

On the other hand 7zip is opensource and thus more preferable in respect to crypto.

hxxp://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm

there is UnRAR source code, structure format, crypto source you can check it :-)

[arthur plank]

When it comes to any software tools (including compression tools), habit is also a major driving force.

It's only fairly recently that I've started to use 7zip and it's now become the standard for our company use. But for a long time, ARJ was the preferred choice.

[gigaman]

WinRAR has one thing that Zip/7Zip doesn't - support for packing the files including their NTFS streams.

Now I'm not saying it's very useful (or more important than speed or compression ratio)... more of a curiosity. But if you wanted to pack files including the Internet Zone information for some reason (which IE used to store in NTFS streams, AFAIK), it could be helpful. :-)

I'd also say many people use the packer (and especially the archive format) they are used to; the change is slow, and often needs to be pushed by something your current packer just can't do and you need it.