Everyone needs a way to unzip files, whether those files are in the standard .zip format or one of a myriad other types, such as .rar or .7z. That said, there are more tools for extracting files than there are formats, which makes it difficult to settle on a single tool.

Into this crowded environment comes Unzipper. At first glance its user interface isn’t promising – looking dated before you begin. But on the upside it can handle 35 formats, including more obscure options like .gzip, .lzh and .tar. There’s also support for .iso and .cab files.

Unzipper can also compress files too, albeit a smaller number of formats are supported, but crucially their number includes .zip and .7z. You can also encrypt using AES-256 and make self-extracting archives too.

The program creates a context-menu entry with lots of options for compressing and extracting on the fly and everything is looking rosy when it suddenly hits you: Unzipper has a strange sense of familiarity about it, and that’s because it’s basically a rip off of 7-Zip. The icon set is slightly updated, but otherwise it’s virtually identical down to the options on each menu. There are subtle differences here and there, but nothing to say this is a completely separate body of work.

Things get worse when you look on the program’s website where it talks of the program being ad-supported, which means the potential for Potentially Unwanted Programs. Except there were no PUP "offers" attached to the download file (it being only 732KB) when we reviewed it. However, that doesn’t mean the program will be spared this ignominy in the future. Take our advice, give this a wide berth and use 7-Zip instead.