B1 Free Archiver

Pro:

• the only Linux archiver to show extraction progress (at least with 7-Zip);
• file context menu in file manager (at least in Nemo)
• sleek visuals

Con:

• only compresses into Zip and its own format
• extracting is only one click away after clicking the context menu option, but still one click away
• not available in the official repositories, nor as source code, so it is very difficult to trust, I mean you know you are taking chances with it, and it doesn't really inspire confidence, that's for sure, although apparently the software looks clean

All in all, probably deserves more towards three stars, but I was looking for extraction progress and context menu support which I didn't find better elsewhere.

I was tersing B1 Free archiver on my Linux (Lubuntu 19.04) and I think it bad because of:

• the included bundleware (with Linux user can't unslect while installing)
• no support of the most of archive types
• ugly and primitive interface
• leak much basic and advanced functionality
• require to install additional files

I do not understand the power of B1 archives. They are neither the fastest, nor the most compressive. The program can make 6 types of archives. ZIP, 7Z, Tar, Gzip, Bzip2 and B1. I couldn't integrate it with the explorer on "Windows 8.1" x64. The box in its options didn't change when I clicked on it. I played with it for a while, then decided to stick with "Haozip" mostly. Although, I'm always looking for something new in this industry.

Works well with Chinese passwords. Many of the other archive programs I tried did not.

I found B1 super helpful for creating password-protected zip-files on my mac. I'm not in the mood of learning this terminal-stuff and also not willing to spend many $... it just works for me very fine! Thanks

Tried many of archivers. This archiver for Mac the best of the free.

It's not a bad archiver. It supports many formats, has a nice GUI, and the most important functionality. There is a setup wizard and tutorial that introduces newcomers to how archives in general, and B1 Archiver in particular, work.

While it does have a number of options to change its behaviour, I personally missed more detailed settings, especially when it comes to compression settings for a new archive. The tool can create archives in ZIP and its own B1 format. While for B1 you get at least 5 compression presets, there are no settings at all for ZIP. So it is definitely not the right tool for power users. But what's there seems to work well, including drag & drop, and temporary extraction of files from an archive when opening them – two things other archivers still don't support or get right after many years (such as 7-Zip GUI). Feature-wise, it's definitely a lot better than so many other archivers I tried (particularly on Mac) which make it almost impossible to do anything beyond double-click to extract.

I personally felt that the speed of B1 wasn't the best though. This includes both compression and decompression which weren't as good as with WinRAR or 7-Zip, as well as the GUI, which seemed to become a bit sluggish when a large (1GB) archive was opened (tested on a Core i7 with 32 GB RAM and Windows 7 x64).

If you just need an archiver to extract the odd file, B1 can be a good choice. If you work with archives more regularly and need fine-grained control, look for a more comprehensive tool.