The Windows Explorer native .zip file integration works fine, but most people want something with more features. There are many third-party archiving tools available like WinRar, Winzip are common ones. They have a new contender which is completely FREE! 7-Zip is a file compression utility developed by Igor Pavlov. It has better compression that the other popular archiving softwares PKZip, WinZip etc.
7-Zip is best known for its support of high-compression non-ZIP technology (7Z) which has 30-70% better compression than the zip format. If you are switching from winrar or winzip to 7-zip you don’t have to recompress all the older files cause 7-zip supports all the popular compression formats.
It supports packing / unpacking of: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR File Formats and supports Unpacking only of: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS File Formats.It is easy to install, installer is just about 1MB of size. Its simple user interface makes it pretty easy to use. 7-Zip also supports creation of SFX (self-extracting) files which makes it quite superior to its commercial counterparts. 7-Zip can be downloaded HERE.