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7z

Movies to go? Try SMPlayer Portable

If open-source freeware has a weak spot, it's the hobbyist thing, and nowhere is that more evident than in media players. "Wait while it updates what? Font cache? I just want to hear 'Surfin' Bird!'" Many people are more than willing to forgo the advantages of open-source players for something easier to use.

MPlayer is an open-source media player optimized for playing movies, but it has a lot of options and capabilities, with more coming all the time. SMPlayer aims to be a unified front end for MPlayer, simplifying access to basic features such as playing videos … Read more

Even ZIPpier

Most people are familiar with ZIP files, which let users compress one or more files into a smaller format that's easier to store and transport. 7z is a format similar to ZIP that uses a higher compression ratio, shrinking archives to an even smaller size. Win7z is a simple tool that lets you compress files in both the ZIP and 7z formats. It's easy to master and is a good alternative if you find that the ZIP format isn't quite meeting your needs.

The program's interface is attractive and easy to navigate, with menus and well-labeled … Read more

Enhanced for Windows 7

With version 14 of this venerable archiving tool, WinZip aims specifically at Windows 7 compliance and enhancements, and adds a few other new features, too. WinZip in Windows 7 gets extensive support for libraries, tools, and recent archives in the jumplist, previews in Windows Explorer for certain file types, and basic touch-screen support. Multitouch support is limited to rotating pictures previewed from WinZip archives.

WinZip 14 also includes minor security enhancements. New automatic wiping keeps confidential data secret by "shredding" the temporary file that WinZip creates by default whenever it opens an archive. The shredding uses U.S. … Read more