IZArc is a file archiver for Microsoft Windows developed by Bulgarian programmer Ivan Zahariev. The program is freeware, but not open source. In addition to the the most frequently used archive formats, like zip, rar, gzip, tar.gz, bzip2, and 7z, IZArc handles an untypically large number of less common formats (48 in total, see below). A further distinguishing feature of IZArc is its ability to convert archives into different formats (including CD images and conversion between self-extracting and standard archives). When using the 7z format, IZArc achieves a very high compression speed equaled only by 7-Zip.

Notable Features

Archive conversion

CD Images conversion

Disk spanning from and to multiple diskettes or other removable media

Creation of Multi-Volume Sets

Merging of Multi-Volume Sets

Creation of self-extracting archives

UnSFX (Reconversion of self-extracting .EXE files to standard archives)

Broken archive repair

UU/XX/MIME Encode/Decode

Encryption of files using Rijndael - AES (256-bits) encryption

Decryption of (.ize) files

CD/DVD Images support (ISO, BIN, MDF, NRG, IMG, C2D, PDI, CDI)

Integration in Windows Explorer context menu

Automatic installation of most software distributed in archive files

Virus Scan feature

Formats

IZArc (as of version 3.81) currently supports the following file formats: 7-Zip, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, IZE, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MBF, MDF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO.

Problems

Many IZArc users eager to use 7-Zip format find the 7z support is insufficient due to its lack of action selection (add,move or update), encryption and parameter modification. IZArc does not support ISO editing. In addition, it does not support Unicode. While IZArch achieves a very high speed when compressing to the 7z format, and still a high speed with the widespread ZIP format, its compression speed is slow when handling other archive formats.

Command Line Add-on

Command Line Add-on is a set of advanced command line tools for Windows. It can be executed by calling from batch files, run from script files or executed from other applications. Its newest version is 1.1 (Build 140).

Portable version

IZArc is also available as a portable application called IZArc2Go. It includes all features and functions of the permanently installed version, except explorer shell-menu integration and the ability to associate file types with it.

Awards

It has been awarded by several well-known download sites, such as FileTransit, SnapFiles, SoftNews, Softpedia, WebAttack, etc., for its user-friendliness and wide archive format support.