WinAce is a legacy archiving app for Windows. It works primarily with the eponymous ACEarchive format but supports ZIP, RAR and CAB. The app is not free, but its developer also developed a freeware, CLI app called Unace for macOS and Linux that extracts archive files.
Beginning with version 2.65, WinAce was bundled with the WhenU SaveNowadware program. This bundle was removed from the last version (2.69) and had been replaced with an opt-in sponsorship deal via TrialPay. The app has since been discontinued.
Commandline ACE for DOS, sporting a text-based user interface (TUI)
There is a third the app for the DOS operating system, called Commandline ACE. Its title, however, is misnomer because the app sports a text-based user interface (TUI) that emulates the color theme of Norton Commander. In addition to the ACE format, it supports ARJ, RAR, ZIP, and LZH (partial) archive formats.
Commandline ACE ships with a copy of Unace. Both apps support DOS, OS/2 and Windows operating systems, and recognize long filenames. Commandline ACE could be used for file management.
The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions and could therefore port its text adventures to a new platform simply by writing a Z-machine implementation for that platform. With the large number of incompatible home computer systems in use at the time, this was an important advantage over using native code or developing a compiler for each system.
WinZip is a trialware file archiver and compressor for Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. It is developed by WinZip Computing, which is owned by Alludo. The program can create archives in Zip file format, unpack some other archive file formats and it also has various tools for system integration.
ZIP is an archive file format that supports lossless data compression. A ZIP file may contain one or more files or directories that may have been compressed. The ZIP file format permits a number of compression algorithms, though DEFLATE is the most common. This format was originally created in 1989 and was first implemented in PKWARE, Inc.'s PKZIP utility, as a replacement for the previous ARC compression format by Thom Henderson. The ZIP format was then quickly supported by many software utilities other than PKZIP. Microsoft has included built-in ZIP support in versions of Microsoft Windows since 1998 via the "Plus! 98" addon for Windows 98. Native support was added as of the year 2000 in Windows ME. Apple has included built-in ZIP support in Mac OS X 10.3 and later. Most free operating systems have built in support for ZIP in similar manners to Windows and macOS.
RAR is a proprietary archive file format that supports data compression, error correction and file spanning. It was developed in 1993 by Russian software engineer Eugene Roshal and the software is licensed by win.rar GmbH. The name RAR stands for Roshal Archive.
7-Zip is a free and open-source file archiver, a utility used to place groups of files within compressed containers known as "archives". It is developed by Igor Pavlov and was first released in 1999. 7-Zip has its own archive format called 7z, but can read and write several others.
4DOS is a command-line interpreter by JP Software, designed to replace the default command interpreter COMMAND.COM in Microsoft DOS and Windows. It was written by Rex C. Conn and Tom Rawson and first released in 1989. Compared to the default, it has a large number of enhancements.
StuffIt Expander is a proprietary, freeware, closed source, decompression software utility developed by Allume Systems. It runs on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows. Prior to 2011, a Linux version had also been available for download.
For Microsoft Windows, OS/2, and DOS, .exe is the filename extension that denotes a file as being executable – a computer program – containing an entry point.
Norton Commander (NC) is a discontinued prototypical orthodox file manager (OFM), written by John Socha and released by Peter Norton Computing. NC provides a text-based user interface for managing files on top of MS-DOS. It was officially produced between 1986 and 1998. The last MS-DOS version of Norton Commander, 5.51, was released on July 1, 1998.
WinRAR is a trialware file archiver utility for Windows, developed by Eugene Roshal of win.rar GmbH. It can create and view archives in RAR or ZIP file formats, and unpack numerous archive file formats. To enable the user to test the integrity of archives, WinRAR embeds CRC32 or BLAKE2 checksums for each file in each archive. WinRAR supports creating encrypted, multi-part and self-extracting archives.
Total Commander is an orthodox file manager, i.e. it features two file list panels and a command line. It supports multiple tabs for each panel.
In computing, ACE is a proprietary data compression archive file format developed by Marcel Lemke, and later bought by e-merge GmbH. The peak of its popularity was 1999–2001, when it provided slightly better compression rates than RAR, which has since become more popular.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of file archivers. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. They are neither all-inclusive nor are some entries necessarily up to date. Unless otherwise specified in the footnotes section, comparisons are based on the stable versions—without add-ons, extensions or external programs.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of notable file managers.
Rich Text Format Directory, also known as RTFD, or Rich Text Format with Attachments, is a primary document format of TextEdit, an application native to NeXTSTEP and macOS which has also been ported to other versions of Unix. The file format is based on the Rich Text Format, but can also include "attachments" such as images and animations.
A self-extracting archive is a computer executable program which combines compressed data in an archive file with machine-executable code to extract the information. Run on a compatible operating system, there is no need for a suitable extractor in the target computer to extract the data. The executable part of the file is known as a decompressor stub.
PeaZip is a free and open-source file manager and file archiver for Microsoft Windows, ReactOS, Linux, MacOS and BSD by Giorgio Tani. It supports its native PEA archive format and other mainstream formats, with special focus on handling open formats. Version 9.4.0 supported 234 file extensions.
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/ 8 November 2007
