{"slug": "7-zip", "name": "7-Zip", "category": "files", "category_name": "Files, sync and backup", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 18, "warners": 4, "score": 1.943, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-24", "latest": "2026-09-22", "why": "I use it like a poor man's binwalk to extract firmware files and updates", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 11, "compare": 0, "warn": 5}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I use it like a poor man's binwalk to extract firmware files and updates", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "7-zip.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.7-zip.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["7-Zip"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 771084322, "item_id": 48192770, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48192770", "by": "KerrickStaley", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You have to use 7-Zip instead.", "excerpt": "You can also make ZIP files smaller by switching the compression from Deflate to Zstandard. In the one case I tried this, this resulted in a 60% file size decrease [1]. Unfortunately Info-ZIP which provides the unzip command hasn't had a release in 18 years, so it doesn't support this newer compression/decompression method. You have to use 7-Zip instead. [1] https://github.com/UKGovernmentBEIS/inspect_ai/pull/3145", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Make ZIP files smaller with ZIP Shrinker"}, {"id": 760858416, "item_id": 47553651, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47553651", "by": "kotaKat", "date": "2026-03-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it like a poor man's binwalk to extract firmware files and updates", "excerpt": "Even better, wait until people discover 7zip's 'parser mode' on Windows (especially). Right click a file -> 7zip -> Open archive -> #:e mode. Really fun way to quickly carve out files and snoop around. I use it like a poor man's binwalk to extract firmware files and updates and etc out of things to usual success. (#:e Parser mode, ignoring full archives, and checks every single byte position of a file for 'start of a", "context": "", "use_case": "extracting archives from binaries", "switched_from": "", "story": ".apks are just .zips; semi-legally hacking software for orphaned hardware [video]"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 796773664, "item_id": 49798354, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49798354", "by": "xxs", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Please no - no native zstd support.", "excerpt": "> Windows users should use 7-Zip Please no - no native zstd support. NanaZip is the better option (it's a different build of 7-zip) and it's available at windows store. > Better compression format, unpacks more kinds of archives winrar has supported zstd for 5 years[0] In short - Everyone should be using zstd, and 7-zip does not support it. [0]: https://www.win-rar.com/singlenewsview.html?&L=0&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Can gzip be a language model?"}, {"id": 768741424, "item_id": 48046339, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48046339", "by": "xxs", "date": "2026-05-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": ".7z being there just discredits the entire process.", "excerpt": ".7z being there just discredits the entire process. The underlying compression algorithm is a free-hand one and can be anything[0], or contain bugs and exploits[1]. Personally I use only zstd with .7z which is 'non-standard' by the official (Russian) release. [0]: https://7-zip.org/7z.html [1]: CVE-2025-0411", "context": "", "use_case": "archiving", "switched_from": "", "story": "SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format"}, {"id": 752276608, "item_id": 47017288, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47017288", "by": "krypd0h", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "will probably change back soon to the malware links", "excerpt": "The links to the file downloads on 7zip.com all point to 7-zip.org. Example: https://www.7-zip.org/a/7z2501-x64.exe Did they change it because of the negative publicity (Reddit) and will probably change back soon to the malware links?", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "7zip.com Is Serving Malware"}, {"id": 752262672, "item_id": 47016417, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47016417", "by": "reddalo", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I migrated from 7-Zip to NanaZip, a fork with modern Windows features that the original developer refuses to implement.", "excerpt": "I migrated from 7-Zip to NanaZip, a fork with modern Windows features that the original developer refuses to implement. https://github.com/M2Team/NanaZip", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "7-Zip", "story": "7zip.com Is Serving Malware"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["extracting installer", "extract installer msi", "archiving and encryption", "archiving", "extracting archives from binaries", "extracting archives"], "compared": [{"slug": "nanazip", "name": "NanaZip", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "zstandard", "name": "Zstandard", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "notepadplusplus", "name": "Notepad++", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "winrar", "name": "WinRAR", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47014995", "title": "7zip.com Is Serving Malware", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48042434", "title": "SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46445491", "title": "2025 was a disaster for Windows 11", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49797323", "title": "Can gzip be a language model?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48762000", "title": "Show HN: Mail Memories \u2013 A desktop app to rescue photos from Gmail", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48747116", "title": "FFmpeg 9.1's new AAC encoder", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 2, "warn": 1}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 4, "warn": 2}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"warn": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 796773664, "item_id": 49798354, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49798354", "by": "xxs", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Please no - no native zstd support.", "excerpt": "> Windows users should use 7-Zip Please no - no native zstd support. NanaZip is the better option (it's a different build of 7-zip) and it's available at windows store. > Better compression format, unpacks more kinds of archives winrar has supported zstd for 5 years[0] In short - Everyone should be using zstd, and 7-zip does not support it. [0]: https://www.win-rar.com/singlenewsview.html?&L=0&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Can gzip be a language model?"}, {"id": 780502704, "item_id": 48781419, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48781419", "by": "KomoD", "date": "2026-07-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I downloaded the installer, opened it with 7zip, and extracted the app.asar file", "excerpt": "> The details are interesting! How did you find all of this out? Did you download the tool in a VM and disasm it? I downloaded the installer, opened it with 7zip, and extracted the app.asar file from resources/app.asar. All Electron apps have this, it's where the app code really lives. Then I used asar to extract it. That gives you a few folders, including dist, which contains 5 .jsc files. Nearly everything related ", "context": "", "use_case": "extracting installer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Mail Memories \u2013 A desktop app to rescue photos from Gmail"}, {"id": 780086865, "item_id": 48755429, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755429", "by": "ndiddy", "date": "2026-07-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "opening an old version of the iTunes installer in 7-zip", "excerpt": "It gets installed when you install iTunes. If you don't want to install iTunes, you can pull out the codec installer by opening an old version of the iTunes installer in 7-zip and extracting the MSI. Here's a copy I keep around for whenever I have to do a screen recording on a new computer, it's signed by Apple so you don't have to trust me. https://www.infochunk.com/obs/AppleApplicationSupport64.msi", "context": "", "use_case": "Extract installer MSI", "switched_from": "", "story": "FFmpeg 9.1's new AAC encoder"}, {"id": 771084322, "item_id": 48192770, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48192770", "by": "KerrickStaley", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You have to use 7-Zip instead.", "excerpt": "You can also make ZIP files smaller by switching the compression from Deflate to Zstandard. In the one case I tried this, this resulted in a 60% file size decrease [1]. Unfortunately Info-ZIP which provides the unzip command hasn't had a release in 18 years, so it doesn't support this newer compression/decompression method. You have to use 7-Zip instead. [1] https://github.com/UKGovernmentBEIS/inspect_ai/pull/3145", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Make ZIP files smaller with ZIP Shrinker"}, {"id": 768770737, "item_id": 48048171, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48048171", "by": "xxs", "date": "2026-05-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Why use it w/ 7-zip though. 7-zip archives multiple files/directories and supports encryption.", "excerpt": "I love zstd as the next guy and I do use zstd solo for the most part. I had a talk on it few years back too (incl. using the lib directly from Java, massively decreasing log storage, and so on). Why use it w/ 7-zip though. 7-zip archives multiple files/directories and supports encryption. It has the UI too.. On Windows there is NanaZip that's available in the microsoft store which has been graced by corporate for use", "context": "", "use_case": "Archiving and encryption", "switched_from": "", "story": "SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format"}, {"id": 768741424, "item_id": 48046339, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48046339", "by": "xxs", "date": "2026-05-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": ".7z being there just discredits the entire process.", "excerpt": ".7z being there just discredits the entire process. The underlying compression algorithm is a free-hand one and can be anything[0], or contain bugs and exploits[1]. Personally I use only zstd with .7z which is 'non-standard' by the official (Russian) release. [0]: https://7-zip.org/7z.html [1]: CVE-2025-0411", "context": "", "use_case": "archiving", "switched_from": "", "story": "SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format"}, {"id": 766296849, "item_id": 47893553, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47893553", "by": "tredre3", "date": "2026-04-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "7-zip can also read ext4 to some degree", "excerpt": "There are surprisingly few tools to work on file system images in the Linux world, they expect loopback mounting to always be available. There are a few libraries to read ext4 but every time I've tried to use one it missed one feature that my specific image was using (mke2fs changes its defaults every couple years to rely on newer ext4 features). 7-zip can also read ext4 to some degree and, I'm not sure but, they see", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Mounting tar archives as a filesystem in WebAssembly"}, {"id": 760858416, "item_id": 47553651, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47553651", "by": "kotaKat", "date": "2026-03-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it like a poor man's binwalk to extract firmware files and updates", "excerpt": "Even better, wait until people discover 7zip's 'parser mode' on Windows (especially). Right click a file -> 7zip -> Open archive -> #:e mode. Really fun way to quickly carve out files and snoop around. I use it like a poor man's binwalk to extract firmware files and updates and etc out of things to usual success. (#:e Parser mode, ignoring full archives, and checks every single byte position of a file for 'start of a", "context": "", "use_case": "extracting archives from binaries", "switched_from": "", "story": ".apks are just .zips; semi-legally hacking software for orphaned hardware [video]"}, {"id": 754896673, "item_id": 47181042, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181042", "by": "Tepix", "date": "2026-02-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "for example with 7zip", "excerpt": "Tried it with REVERSI.EXE from Windows 3.0 from https://winworldpc.com/download/c2bbc28f-177a-c2b2-5311-c3a4c2ac5a54 DISK02.IMG (you have to first uncompress it, for example with 7zip). $ sha256sum REVERSI.EXE a9e319c8f479d1568beec03858fdbb27c71747b2bbed6cd7c9f5e2daa23b40e9 REVERSI.EXE Result: The game starts, it begins rendering the board, but then hangs.", "context": "", "use_case": "Extracting archives", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: RetroTick \u2013 Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser"}, {"id": 752302016, "item_id": 47018876, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47018876", "by": "mmh0000", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "This has been a long-standing problem with 7-Zip.", "excerpt": "This has been a long-standing problem with 7-Zip. An article from 2018: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fake-websites-for-keepass-7zip-audacity-others-found-pushing-adware/ And uBlock Origin's \"Badware\" filter blocks it: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/blob/master/filters/badware.txt#L6350", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "7zip.com Is Serving Malware"}, {"id": 752276608, "item_id": 47017288, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47017288", "by": "krypd0h", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "will probably change back soon to the malware links", "excerpt": "The links to the file downloads on 7zip.com all point to 7-zip.org. Example: https://www.7-zip.org/a/7z2501-x64.exe Did they change it because of the negative publicity (Reddit) and will probably change back soon to the malware links?", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "7zip.com Is Serving Malware"}, {"id": 752263776, "item_id": 47016486, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47016486", "by": "Meneth", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "They are byte-for-byte identical.", "excerpt": "I compared https://7-zip.org/a/7z2600-x64.exe with https://7-zip.com/a/7z2600-x64.exe. They are byte-for-byte identical. If there's malware, it isn't obvious.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "7zip.com Is Serving Malware"}, {"id": 752262672, "item_id": 47016417, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47016417", "by": "reddalo", "date": "2026-02-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I migrated from 7-Zip to NanaZip, a fork with modern Windows features that the original developer refuses to implement.", "excerpt": "I migrated from 7-Zip to NanaZip, a fork with modern Windows features that the original developer refuses to implement. https://github.com/M2Team/NanaZip", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "7-Zip", "story": "7zip.com Is Serving Malware"}, {"id": 751466404, "item_id": 46966650, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46966650", "by": "otherme123", "date": "2026-02-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version.", "excerpt": ">So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version. Maybe Cachy don't have 7z, I don't know. But Arch (its base) has it: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/7-Zip , and I never had any trouble opening 7zips in any Linux either from console or any graphical tool.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Switch to Linux and the Beginning of My Self-Hosting Journey"}, {"id": 750072624, "item_id": 46879539, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46879539", "by": "kbelder", "date": "2026-02-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Same, but additionally Irfanview. And once upon a time, Media Player Classic used to be on that list. This train of thought made me go find https://www.oldversion.com/. For a while, that was invaluable.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Notepad++ supply chain attack breakdown"}, {"id": 748816482, "item_id": 46801030, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46801030", "by": "smusamashah", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "you must use 7-zip, winrar etc", "excerpt": "Please try https://filepilot.tech/ Its like explorer but so much faster in every single way. I have it pinned on the taskbar, it launches quickly than a new explorer window. Main one is no-multiline support atm. Which means that the icon view does not show full file name, list view etc are perfectly fine though. Current problems I have with it are no native zip support, which means you must use 7-zip, winrar etc and ", "context": "", "use_case": "Zip archive handling", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux"}, {"id": 743172993, "item_id": 46448312, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46448312", "by": "Caligatio", "date": "2025-12-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "You can disable the new right click menu with one registry tweak: https://www.elevenforum.com/t/disable-show-more-options-context-menu-in-windows-11.1589/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "2025 was a disaster for Windows 11"}, {"id": 743172192, "item_id": 46448262, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46448262", "by": "Tarball10", "date": "2025-12-31", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The 7-zip creator has been unable or unwilling to make these changes", "excerpt": "Apps need to adhere to some new conditions to contribute items to the Win 11 context menu. The 7-zip creator has been unable or unwilling to make these changes[1]. There are other open source projects which do display in the context menu, such as TortoiseGit and Notepad++. In fact there is a fork of 7-zip called NanaZip which supports the Win 11 context menu. [1] https://sourceforge.net/p/sevenzip/discussion/45797/th", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "2025 was a disaster for Windows 11"}, {"id": 738055761, "item_id": 46128485, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46128485", "by": "prmoustache", "date": "2025-12-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I had to install 7zip because explorer couldn't present me the password dialog", "excerpt": "OTOH I reveived a password protected zip file at work on win11 today and I had to install 7zip because explorer couldn't present me the password dialog to extract it. Also it is true there are features that exist but are half assed. Like virtual desktops. I use them all the time on Linux but on windows they are so inconvenient and unpractical especially if you have multiple monitors. One simole example is you can't m", "context": "", "use_case": "Archive extraction", "switched_from": "", "story": "After Windows Update, Password icon invisible, click where it used to be"}, {"id": 736693312, "item_id": 46043332, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46043332", "by": "mcny", "date": "2025-11-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use 7 zip all the time", "excerpt": "I want to opt out though. I use 7 zip all the time and I don't want this menu that can't have 7 zip...", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows GUI \u2013 Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)"}]}