VSS and UAC elevation support mean it can cope with problems where other tools fail, compressing files even if they're in use and need administrator access to read.

If you're more concerned about the program's practical benefits, there are plenty. The app supports high levels of encryption, with multiple methods supported and support for encrypting and signing Adobe PDF and Microsoft Office documents too. It supports so many file formats (over 50 at last count) that it’s pointless to list them all – suffice to say pretty much any archived format can be read, and the key ones (including of course zip, 7-zip, TAR, GZIP and even ISO) can be written to as well. This is where a dedicated archiving tool come into play, and there’s none more comprehensive than PowerArchiver.

7z is open-source for example – but most OSes can only handle a limited number of compression formats natively. There are all manner of reasons for choosing a different format. Why can’t the world just stick to one simple compressed format like zip, we hear you cry.

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