file extension TAR

The Unarchiver

The Unarchiver is a much more capable replacement for "BOMArchiveHelper.app", the built-in archive unpacker program in Mac OS X. The Unarchiver is designed to handle many more formats than BOMArchiveHelper, and to better fit in with the design of the Finder. It can also handle filenames in foreign character sets, created with non-English versions of other operating systems. I personally find it useful for opening Japanese archives, but it should handle many other languages just as well.

It is very simple to use and install - simply copy it into your Applications folder or whereever you prefer, and then set archive filetypes to open using it. This can either be done the usual way, or by double-clicking the icon to show The Unarchiver's preferences.

Supported file formats include Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, Rar, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other more or less obscure formats

IZArc

IZArc is the ultimate freeware archive utility supporting many archive formats.
IZArc provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, converting from one archive type to another, view and write comments and many more.
IZArc has also build-in multilanguage support.

Key features:

• Create an archive
• Add files to an existing archive
• Delete files from an existing archive
• Extract files from an existing archive
• Test an archive file
• Convert archive
• Convert CD Images
• Repair broken archive
• Searching for any files in many archives
• Favorite Folders
• Obtaining a detailed list of files and information like compression rate, path, or size from an archive file
• Supports both long and short 8.3 filenames
• Disk spanning from and to multiple diskettes or other removable media
• Implementing the possibility to sort the list items by name size, date and etc.
• Full Drag and Drop support
• CD/DVD Images support (ISO, BIN, MDF, NRG, IMG, C2D, PDI, CDI)
• Integrating in Windows Explorer context menu
• Automatic installation of most software distributed in archive files
• Add/View comments in an archive
• By double-clicking onto a file in the file list, it's opened with the program associated to this file type
• CheckOut feature
• Create a self-extracting archive
• E-mail an archive
• Checking for new updates
• Build-in multilanguage support
• Virus Scan feature
• UU/XX/MIME Encode/Decode
• Create Multi-Volume Set
• Merge Multi-Volume Set
• UnSFX (Convert self-extracting (SFX) .EXE files to standard archives)
• Encrypt files using Rijandael - AES (256-bits) encryption
• Zip encryption (WinZip 9 compatible)
• BZip compression for ZIP archives
• Decrypt (.ize) files

Advanced Archive Repair(AARCR) is an archive data recovery suite. It includes tools to recover data from corrupt or damaged Zip or SFX archives, Unix TAR archives, and CAB archives.

Advanced TAR Repair (ATR) is a powerful tool to repair corrupt TAR files. It can scan the TAR archives and recover your data in them as much as possible, so to minimize the loss in file corruption.

ZipIt is a Macintosh program that zips and unzips archives in a format fully compatible with PKZip for the IBM and zip implementations on other systems.

ZipIt features a complete Macintosh interface. In version 2.0, the ZipIt interface has been completely overhauled. Now easier to use than even before, ZipIt makes file compression fun.

Mac OS X users will love the fact that ZipIt runs natively on OS X. ZipIt also takes full advantage of the Aqua user interface.

PKZIP for Windows

Compress files for maximum savings on storage space and transmission times.
Data compression reduces file size by as much as 95%.
It works as effectively for individual users as for enterprise users.

PKZIP for Windows provides:

• Integration with Microsoft Outlook to automatically compress email attachments.
• Enforcement of enterprise policies using policy management capabilities, controlling who can use encryption and what method of encryption they use.
• Ease-of-use features to ensure rapid end-user adoption.
• The .ZIP file format that is compatible across all major enterprise platforms.
• Command-line add-on for scripting unattended processes.

WinRAR benefits:

Using WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression by consistently making smaller archives than the competition, saving disk space and transmission costs.

WinRAR provides complete support for RAR files and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives.

WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface.

When you purchase WinRAR license you are buying a license to the complete technology, no need to purchase add-ons to create self-extracting files, it's all included. One price, one payment, once.

You also receive the benefit of a life-time use of the WinRAR archiver. No upgrade fee to pay. When a new release is made, simply download and install, your license is valid for life.

WinRAR is easier to use than many other archivers with the inclusion of a special "Wizard" mode which allows instant access to the basic archiving functions through a simple question and answer procedure. This avoids confusion in the early stages of use.

WinRAR offers you the benefit of industry strength archive encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a key of 128 bits.

WinRAR supports files and archives up to 8,589 billion gigabytes in size. The number of archived files is, for all practical purposes, unlimited.

WinRAR offers the ability to create selfextracting and multivolume archives.

Recovery record and recovery volumes allow to reconstruct even physically damaged archives.

WinRAR features are constantly being developed to keep WinRAR ahead of the pack.

PicoZIP

PicoZip is a file compression utility for Microsoft Windows users.
Its intuitive user interface is extremely easy to use, while its wide ranging support for most file compression formats and comprehensive feature set makes PicoZip the only archive utility you will ever need.
PicoZip is compatible with Zip files created by WinZip, PKZip and others.

Features:

• Supports ACE, ARC, ARJ, BH, CAB, GZ, JAR, LHA, LZH, RAR, TAR, TGZ, WAR, Z, ZIP, ZOO, MIM, XXE and UUE file formats
• Simple and intuitive user interface
• Seamless Windows integration
• Fast and easy automated backup
• Integrated archive files explorer
• Powerful batch features to automate repetitive tasks
• Easy favorite archive folders management
• Strong 128-bit and 256-bit AES encryption
• Built-in support for CD/DVD burning
• Create self-extracting archives
• Support large Zip files (Zip64)
• Repair ZIP archives
• Split/Merge ZIP archives
• Convert archive formats
• Flexible filtering of files in archives
• Integrated email support
• Virus scanner support
• Quick access tray tool
• Customizable look using toolbar skins
• Command line support
• Recover password from Zip files

FREE expansion and decoding!
Easily expand and decode files you download from the Web or receive in your email. Quickly access StuffIt files, zip files created by WinZip® and other zip utilities, and decompress tar, gzip and bzip files.

WinAce

A compression tool that crunches the last free bit from your data, but takes twice to ten times longer for compressing and - even worse - for extracting your data probably will not work for you - or your customers. On the other hand, a compression tool that deflates your files as quick as lightning but leaves a lot of "air" in the compressed file will not take you far either.

WinAce features

WinAce is not just another archiving shell. With it's own powerful compression format ACE and built-in support for other popular compression types like ZIP, RAR and MS-CAB (to name a few), WinAce could actually become the only archiver you need.

The feature list of WinAce includes:

• compression of the following formats: ACE, ZIP, LHA, MS-CAB, JAVA JAR
• decompression of: ACE, ZIP, LHA, MS-CAB, RAR, ARC, ARJ, GZip, TAR, ZOO, JAR
• multi-volume (disk spanning) archives for ACE, ZIP, CAB
• self-extracting archives (SFX) for ACE and ZIP
• password encryption & recovery records for data protection
• Integrity check for ACE, ZIP, LHA, MS-CAB, RAR, ARC, ARJ, GZip, TAR, ZOO, JAR
• Repair functionality for ACE and ZIP archives
• Authenticity verification for ACE archives
• comment files in HTML, ANSI or ASCII for ACE- and ZIP-Archives
• full command line access (compatible with DOS ACE)
• detailed information for all archive types
• Quickviewer for graphic files, Word Documents, HTML pages and ASCII files
• full drag&drop support
• complete file-management (copying, moving and deleting of files and directories)
• optimization of existing archives
• access to your archives in Windows Explorer and via the context menu (shell extension)
• table of contents in the "Properties" panel of ACE and ZIP files (shell extension)
• ... and so much more!

WinZip description:

WinZip includes major usability enhancements, improved compression technology and, is now available in a Standard and a Pro version. Both the Standard and Pro versions are made available in one distribution file. Functionality is determined by either a Standard or Pro registration code.
Both the Standard and Pro versions offer new, state-of-the-art compression technology allowing you to make even smaller Zip files, and a new Explorer-style view of your Zip file contents, making them easier to navigate, modify, and extract.

Other enhancements include:

• the ability to create split (multi-volume) Zip files during compression, automatic update checking and many more.
• If you've ever used WinZip to backup data sets, archive important documents, or distribute information to others on a regular basis, you'll appreciate the WinZip Job Wizard, included in WinZip Pro. The WinZip Job Wizard provides powerful productivity and automation features that help to simplify your repetitive compression tasks.
• Explorer-style view
• Both versions of WinZip feature a new Explorer-style view of your Zip files, making it much easier to work with complex, multi-folder archives.
  

The Explorer-style view allows you to:

• See the structure of your Zip file at a glance, using a tree-structured view of the folders in your Zip file. The tree view lets you quickly drill down to see only the items in folders that you want to work with. This view appears in the left pane of the WinZip Classic window, and is easily switched on or off according to your preference.
• Display only the files and subfolders in the currently selected folder. These items appear in the separate right pane and can be displayed as tiles, icons, a simple list, or a detailed list.
• Create new folders in your Zip file.
• Add files directly to new or existing folders in your Zip file using drag and drop.
• Quickly extract individual folders and their subfolders by dragging and dropping them to Windows Explorer.
• Easily delete folders and their subfolders from your Zip files.

Improved Compression

WinZip supports two new compression methods within the Zip file format, PPMd and bzip2. These compression methods can provide greater compression and may significantly reduce the size of your Zip files, saving both data transmission time and valuable disk space.
Note: extracting files compressed with PPMd or bzip2 requires a compatible Zip file utility. Currently WinZip 9.0 and 10.0 will process Zip files compressed using the bzip2 method. WinZip is required for PPMd-compressed files.
Note: we have published the full specification of PPMd compression support in Zip files, to allow authors of other Zip file utilities to adopt the PPMd compression format as well.

Automation (WinZip Pro only)

WinZip Pro features the 'WinZip Job Wizard', a completely new and powerful productivity and automation tool. The WinZip Job Wizard allows you to create Zip "jobs" that identify the "what, where, when, and how" of virtually any repetitive zipping task. Once you've created a job, you can run it as easily as double-clicking an icon on your desktop, or schedule it to run automatically.
You can use WinZip jobs for periodic reporting, off-site storage, daily data backups, and anything else that you do repetitively.

WinZip jobs are extremely powerful yet incredibly easy to create and use:

• The new Job Wizard guides you through the process of creating and modifying the WinZip job files by helping you to identify what files and folders you want to compress, where you want to place the Zip file, and how you want the compression performed.
• You can schedule WinZip jobs to run unattended at YOUR convenience, daily, weekly, or monthly. Alternatively, you can run a WinZip job any time you want, directly from Windows Explorer, from the WinZip Classic menus, or from the WinZip Wizard.
• You can automatically send the Zip files created by your jobs to remote FTP sites (great for off-site storage or transmitting compressed data to a central location).
• WinZip jobs even let you specify "Generic folder names" which allow a single job specification to be used by multiple users to create Zip files that are user- and/or machine-specific. For example, a single job file that specifies the generic folder, , always refers to the current user's personal documents folder, no matter where it is located or what it is named. Generic folder names can be used to specify both the location of files to compress and the location of the resultant Zip file.
• WinZip jobs support encryption of your zipped data using either standard Zip 2.0 encryption or WinZip's advanced AES encryption, and can be configured to use a supplied password automatically or to prompt you for a password when the job runs.
• WinZip jobs allow you to create multi-volume Zip files of user-definable sizes for easy storage on removable media.
• Additional optional time and date information can be appended to Zip file names and their locations to allow you to create a different Zip file each time the job is run, so today's Zip file won't overwrite yesterday's.
• WinZip can create an optional log file to allow for silent operation and to provide you with the detailed results of your job each time it is run.

In addition to jobs that you create, WinZip includes several pre-defined job files for compressing the contents of your most common folders and files, such as My Documents, Windows Desktop, your Favorites folder, even your Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail files.

Zip to CD or DVD (WinZip Pro on Windows XP only)

WinZip Pro now allows you to create Zip files directly on CD or DVD, making it unnecessary to zip first to your hard disk and then transfer the Zip files to CD or DVD. Large Zip files will automatically span multiple CDs or DVDs, if necessary. Supported disc formats include: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R.

WinZip Quick File Selection IconQuick file selection

Do you need to see all of the DOC files in your Zip file, or all of the spreadsheets with names that begin with "July"? WinZip makes easy work of locating one or more files in a Zip file with many members. Just use the new 'Select files' feature to specify a name or wildcard pattern and all matching files will be selected and moved to the top of the file list, ready for your next instruction.

Attachment management support

WinZip supports Windows XP SP2's Attachment Manager by working with Windows to block the extraction and execution of dangerous file types from Zip files you download with Internet Explorer or receive as Outlook Express e-mail attachments. This service helps you protect your computer by warning you of files that might be dangerous to open.

More efficient Zip file splitting

WinZip can easily split your large Zip files as they are created. In one simple step you can zip large amounts of data and split it into smaller pieces for easy storage on removable media or for sending by e-mail.

Automatic update checking

WinZip can automatically check to see if a new version of the program is available. Periodic update checking runs on a schedule of your choosing, or you can check manually whenever you like. When an update is available, WinZip displays a brief description of the update and offers to open an Internet browser window to the WinZip web site.

TAR

The Tar program provides the ability to create tar archives, as well as various other kinds of manipulation. For example, you can use Tar on previously created archives to extract files, to store additional files, or to update or list files which were already stored.

Initially, tar archives were used to store files conveniently on magnetic tape. The name "Tar" comes from this use; it stands for tape archiver. Despite the utility's name, Tar can direct its output to available devices, files, or other programs (using pipes), it can even access remote devices or files (as archives).