•Solid compression with smart updates (only changed solid blocks are recompressed) •User-definable solid block size (-s…) and file sorting order (-ds…), including customized filename ordering (arc.groups) •AES/Blowfish/Twofish/Serpent encryption with keyfiles support and ability to chain multiple ciphers (-p, -hp, --keyfile, --encryption=ALGORITHMS) •FAR and Total Commander plugins allow to create/browse/extract archives using the file manager interface •Ability to create SFX (self-extracted) archives and installers •Ability to list/extract archives directly from Internet: arc x http://freearc.org/demo/arc.arc *.h •Archive protection and recovery, including recovery over Internet driven by CRCs of archive sectors (r/rr/-rr/--original=URL) •Ability to test archive before and after any operation (-tp/-t), including checking by recovery record and full archive test •Moving to archive (m), joining archives (j), archive recompression (ch), locking (k) and commenting (-z/cw) •Select files by size, time/age and name (-sl, -sm, -ta, -tb, -tn, -to, -n), select by/clear ARCHIVE file attribute (-ao/-ac) •Base directory on disk / inside archive (-dp/-ap), automatic generation of archive filenames (-ag) •Errors and warnings are reported to stderr and reflected in program exit code; --logfile option saves to the file all the information displayed •Configurable via arc.ini file and FREEARC environment variable; alternative settings may be selected by means of -cfg/-env options

Support for a variety of archive and compression formats . Robust automatic format detection, including archive/compression combinations such as tar.gz. Zero-copy internal architecture for high performance. Streaming architecture eliminates all limits on size of archive, limits on entry sizes depend on particular formats. Carefully factored code to minimize bloat when programs are statically linked. Growing test suite to verify correctness of new ports. Works on most POSIX-like systems (including FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, etc.) Supports Windows, including Cygwin, MinGW, and Visual Studio.