FreeArc Console

FreeArc is one of the oldest compression tools out there and even benefited from a fair bit of popularity a decade ago. It offers one of the best compression ratios to date and it’s renowned for its enhanced speed (boasting some of the best compression libraries such as LZMA, PPMD, and GRZipLib), providing users with a decent alternative to more modern archivers such as WinZip, WinRAR, and 7-Zip.

FreeArc comes in three forms: an installer app, a portable one, and a console or command line version dubbed FreeArc Console. While the least user-friendly of the lot, the latter is designed to be as lightweight as possible, providing a very good option for developers who require this sort of program embedded in bigger projects.

The console or command line version works very much like any other command line archiver even boasting some of the same command lines. The basic usage command is Arc command [options…] archive [files… @listfiles…]. Once launched with Window’s command prompt, users are provided with a set of basic commands and their designated letters. For example, users can add files to the archive using the “a” command, and add comments to the archive with “c.”

Underneath the commands list, users can find the full list of options which allows them to heavily customize the whole archiving procedure. FreeArc Console is a competent, fast, and very lightweight command line archiver that, despite its age, can still prove viable for integration in other programs that require all the functions it provides.