7-Zip is finally starting to get the fame it deserves. This freeware ZIP program is the only one in it's pack to really push the bar on technology. Although 7-Zip is best known for its support of high-compression non-ZIP technology (7Z), it also does a better job than WinZIP or PKZip on regular ZIP compression! Check out their compression comparison chart on their home page: 7-zip.org.

I still found their browsing interface a bit of a kludge but they have provided an "Add to Archive" command on the context menu which makes it pretty simple to ZIP up any folder. Also, not all ZIP tools support creating of SFX (self-extracting) files but this one does. 7-Zip will automatically use its superior 7Z compression in the SFX files -- resulting in a compact package that literally slaughters the competition (WinZIP SFX Maker ~ $60). In this case, the free app is far superior to the commercial app. Well done 7-Zip!

If you want technical support, you will have to register at US $20 but otherwise the program is unrestricted and contains no intrusive advertising. 7-ZIP can also create TAR files just in case you ever need to kill a mastodon.

Free for Personal Use Free for Organizations No Adware/Spyware View Files before Unzipping Supports ZIP-64 (huge ZIPs) ZIP Context Command ZIP-to-Email Command Self-Extracting Archives Password Encryption Non-ZIP Formats Overall, 7-Zip is my favorite power-user ZIP program -- and if you need to create compact SFX files, a must-have app!
7-Zip Home Download 7-Zip (899k)

ZIPGenius is a perfect example of a program that mis-diagnosis the problem. The problem is not that WinZIP is too expensive, it's too cluttered with unnecessary functionality! But if you love the clutter, you'll love ZIPGenius even more. I have never sees a program demostrated such a capability for "feature creep".

ZIPGenius' ZIP features are really solid with great security features, 7-ZIP format support, built-in SFX support, ZIP-64 support etc. Also included are image viewing features, twain (scanner) management, a slide-show builder, support for OpenOffice documents, multi-language, CD-R writing, FTP uploading, and pretty much everything else but a kitchen sink (which they promise to include the next update!).

Free for Personal Use Free for Organizations No Adware/Spyware View Files before Unzipping Supports ZIP-64 (huge ZIPs) ZIP Context Command ZIP-to-Email Command Self-Extracting Archives Password Encryption Non-ZIP Formats ZIPGenius is really a vast project and seems to be very well executed but I personally do not like software that tries to be everything.
ZIPGenius Home Download ZIPGenius (6.44mb)

IZArc support a ton of compression formats. Just look at this impressive list of acronyms: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BZ2, BZA, CAB, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MBF, MIM, PAK, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO.

IZArc also has good AES encryption for those who need it and best of all, it has a pretty darned good interface -- not to cluttered but rather straightforward! I'm pretty impressed. (I was NOT impressed with their website's interface however. How does that work?)

Free for Personal Use Free for Organizations No Adware/Spyware View Files before Unzipping Supports ZIP-64 (huge ZIPs) ZIP Context Command ZIP-to-Email Command Self-Extracting Archives Password Encryption Non-ZIP Formats Overall, IZArc is a great power-user ZIP program -- an excellent WinZIP replacement!
IZArc Home Download IZArc (3mb)