PeaZip, a free, open-source file manager and archiving tool for Windows, Linux, and macOS, has released its 10.6 update, which brings updates to several dependencies, including 7z. As mentioned, the 10.6 release ships with 7z 25.01, which itself provides better security for handling symlinks, a small but important fix to prevent potentially malicious behavior. The application's native archive format, Pea, has been updated to 1.26.
Other backend changes include updates to the Windows version of the McMilk code base. For Linux and macOS users, the software now integrates T.Yamada's cielavenir p7zip fork, adding support for the Brotli, Lizard, LZ4, LZ5 and Zstd codecs in the .7z format. The Zpaq interface has also been updated to support Zpaqfranz as its default binary.
In the file manager, the developers added the Documents directory to the default bookmarks and added a convenient search function in the settings screen. The real highlight, however, is the performance improvement when browsing large archives or folders.
File browser performance has also been significantly improved, with it said to be over 6 times faster on Windows and 30 times faster on macOS. This includes a new dynamic virtual mode for file lists, which kicks in when you're viewing a large number of projects. The threshold is 8K on Windows and 16K on Qt6, but is always enabled on macOS for maximum performance gains. This mode does have some limitations; it disables displaying application icons and image thumbnails, and you can only rename items using the F2 key.
The new version fixes several bugs, including correcting the way multi-part save sizes are reported in the progress screen. The application also now unchecks the "Keep password/key file" option in sessions by default, which is a more secure practice. If you frequently work with hidden files, the toggle for "Show hidden files (in the file system)" has been moved from the Settings deep menu to the main menu.
For non-Windows users, PeaZip can now automatically find your RAR binary to enable RAR creation, and the status bar will show the available disk space. New alternative icons are available for system integration. You can now limit the number of Zpaq threads on the archive creation screen, and the general compression presets have been updated.
If you're interested, you can view the full changelog and download it for your operating system.