Files with a .7z extension are compressed archive files and are most commonly assosiated with '7-Zip', which is an open-source archiving tool. The 7z file format is the default archiving format of 7-Zip, although 7-Zip does support many other compression formats such as Zip, gzip etc.
The .7z file format is a container format, meaning each .7z file can contain multiple files or folders.
Some of the features that have contributed to the .7z file format's rise in popularity are:
- An open architecture design - Rijndael/AES-256 (256-bit) encryption - High compression ratios - Multi-threading support - Support for large file sizes
