I've used Winzip for years and been perfectly content.
In the beginning of this year, I built myself a new PC and installed all of the SW from scratch, including the latest version of WinZip.
I don't do anything fancy with it and really don't want to buy any SW at this time, but Winzip has really gotten annoying (and SLOW) with the NAG messages.
I also think that sometimes there are too many options and screens to navigate, just to unzip, or even zip a simple file.

can anyone recommend a better (and still free) zip utility?

Thanks! MPTech