In fairness, there's always been a 'Lite' version of 8 Zip that's free, but still... 62p! Essentially, the full version lets you work with a vast array of compression formats, not just ZIP files.
Here's a summarised changelog of the updates to 8 Zip in the last 12 months, to give you an idea of the developer's efforts:
- Creators Update support
- Extended Share contract feature, now you can easily: - send files from archive to the clipboard; - unpack compressed file simple by sending it to 8 Zip from any other app including Explorer; - unpack several archives at once; - compress files with Share from another app including Explorer.
- Implemented auto update if you modified compressed document in external application.
- Added option to turn on app window transparency (aka NEON).
- Added compact overlay mode for image/audio/video viewer (aka Picture in picture).
- Added equalizer to audio player.
- The restoring of original time of files and folders during extraction was added.
- Xbox One support.
- Comic Book Archive support (.cbz, .cbr)
- UI improvements.
- New languages: Albanian, Croatian, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Serbian, Swedish.
- Improved ability to select items in list for pen and mouse. Now you can do it using selection rectangle.
- Integration with Cortana
- Basic support of multitasking was added: packing and unpacking of small archives can be performed if app was minimized.
- Progress bar is shown when archive is opening.
Some example screenshots of 8 Zip, the UWP app, in action on my Lumia 950 XL:
Creating a new archive, with files and folders from all over my phone - each is shown within the archive, with original file size and the compression ratio achieved; (right) note the subtle transparency effects on the hamburger menu - they're more dramatic with a more colourful theme!
Selection of files to be added to an archive is done with the standard Windows 10 Mobile file picker; (right) notifications are pushed for completion of compression or extraction (useful if you're dealing with a lot of [or very big] files)
The contents of a downloaded ZIP archive, note again that every file has an appropriate application assigned to handle its file type. This is an OS thing, but it's well integrated here; (right) in Personalization is control over transparency effects and a choice of colourful application 'themes'!
Here's 8 Zip in the Store and here's 8 Zip Lite, should you encounter this story after about November 19th 2017, or if the offer isn't valid in your local Microsoft Store (though it was for all the Stores I checked).
Impressive software and I'm only sorry that I haven't plugged it more over the last few years, the last time we mentioned 8 Zip was in 2014!!