7zX for Mac is a great program. I've used it in the past and found it quite useful, especially as more and more people (e.g., Adobe) are turning to 7zX compression.
Cons
The link listed here at CNET took me to a redirect of a very suspicious website. Approach with caution.
Summary
I think this is a good program, but don't download it here until CNET finds a better link.
hard to get used to the drag 'n drop approach only
Summary
This zip archiver is very easy to use, once you get the hang of just how to get the files to it. Direct clicking on the app icon will get you a shell terminal, and then a warning that it only works via drag n drop. One you install it (drag to Applications), it's there, but clicking on it just mounts it (icon onto desktop). They you drag files to it, it opens a prompt window to enter password, etc, and then you've got your zip file.
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com. It's free and it compresses well. What's not to like about 7zX? Well...
1. There's some "check for update" spyware in the program that apparently can't be turned off.
2. It always seems to bring up some Growl-like window asking for money. Why can't it just use Growl so I can customize its alerts?
3. The program won't run and stay running; it always just does its one task and then it quits.
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com. That one change in not having it ask for the setting every time makes a big difference ...it is now quite useable and is very impressive compressing binary files compared to stuffit, and although the compression time is somewhat slower, which is acceptable due to the higher compression, the uncompressing time is also much slower unfortunately.
Bottom line - if speed is important to you, skip it. If compression is more important, give it a try.
*speed trials compared to stuffit:
- slower compared with normal stuffit compression.
- similar or even faster compared with higher/highest stuffit compression, depending on the file)*
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com. As noted by others, it takes a while to compress a 100 MB folder of miscellaneous documents; it does shrink the file by 40%. So far, so good.
The problem starts when you try to decompress the resulting archive.
Multiple attempts, but the decompression process stops after a few seconds.
Running OS X 10.4.6 on a Powerbook 1.67GHz with 1GB ram (no other apps running)
Could be a "cockpit" problem, I guess; I just double clicked on the archive (.7z) file.
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com. I got it to work only for a 500K JPEG but for 10MB TFFs it appeared to be running in an endless loop. I ran the accompanying debugger but it did not create the log file it was supposed to. Although this compression format sounds good, to entrust files to a compression tool at this level of development would be foolish.
