7zip is available on Linux, I'd assume that it's in the default repository of practically every distribution out there.
tar was always the standard linux archive format... but these days you should be able to use nearly anything.I am surprised you are getting errors with zip files, they should work fine. What archiver are you using to create them?
.mozilla.zip.waterfox.zip
Basically @Spatry answered my question here.I'm on Xubuntu 18.04. In Thunar File Manager I was trying to use "Create Archive" like @CwF mentions here I don't know if this is the same thing or not but my Xubuntu 18.04 has Engrampa Archive Manager installed. Just before I logged in here, I tried "Create Archive" under Thunar again. This time it made the following zip files just fine.
So I don't know what my problem was the other day. I'm marking this thread as [Solved]