More freeware archiver utilities
IZArc version 3.2.2
Freeware - Create and Extract Multiple Formats, including ZIP, ACE, RAR, CAB, RPM, 7-ZIP, BZIP2.
The program has a fancy interface (colourful in a good way), but does seem slow.
It has a feature to "Hack" zip passwords - which uses a brute force method, sounds useful, but
takes a really long time, unless you have an idea of what the password could be. The program had some problems when creating BlakHole archives (BH) - some files added did not pass integrity checking.
Performance: Tried deleting files from a 83,655Kb zip file - it took over 21 minutes, and finished as I was
about to give the program a three-fingered salute.
QuickZip
I tested version 2.22, and it is now at version 3.01, oops, no version 3.05.1...
I so much wanted to like this program, which seems to have so much going for it.
Features: Handles many compression formats including ZIP, 7Z, RAR, TAR/TGZ, ACE, ARJ, LHA, BGA, BZ2 and YZ1.
It can include extract, add, sfx, run, install, checkout, do virus scanning, spanning, batch zipping, export the file list to txt, htm and pdf files, plus many other features, including script support.
Like I said, I really wanted to like this program with all of these features, and its Free!
However, when I installed it, it installed a "QuickLaunch Button" without asking.
The User Interface is quite messy.
For the Performance test, I found that you can't select files the way you would in Windows
Explorer - have to individually select each file and then Reverse Selection. This is instead
of using the Shift-Down Arrow key combination to select a lot of files. After figuring this
out, I tried deleting files from a 83,655Kb zip file, and it took just over 4 minutes, not
including the time to select the files and reverse the selection...
Saturday, August 30, 2003
Friday, August 29, 2003
Correction
With regard to ZipStar, before I get myself in hot water, this archiver is not freeware. To
quote from their web page:
"ZipStar may be used free of charge if you
- are a student, teacher or some other kind of member of a teaching facility
(public/private school or university);
- use the software exclusively for private and non-profit purposes.
Self-extracting archives created with ZipStar may be used for private purposes only.
ZipStar is not freeware -- this means that online service providers and similar entities
may only offer ZipStar for download on their pages with an explicit written permission from
SpeedProject"
It wouldn't do to promote the illegal, unlawful and darn right unethical use of software, would it now?
With regard to ZipStar, before I get myself in hot water, this archiver is not freeware. To
quote from their web page:
"ZipStar may be used free of charge if you
- are a student, teacher or some other kind of member of a teaching facility
(public/private school or university);
- use the software exclusively for private and non-profit purposes.
Self-extracting archives created with ZipStar may be used for private purposes only.
ZipStar is not freeware -- this means that online service providers and similar entities
may only offer ZipStar for download on their pages with an explicit written permission from
SpeedProject"
It wouldn't do to promote the illegal, unlawful and darn right unethical use of software, would it now?
Thursday, August 28, 2003
More freeware archiving utilities
When I first tried ZipGenius, it was at version 1.4 .
I missed something in the Impressive installation, and when I ran it, ALL the program captions, menus etc. etc. were in Italian..Mama Mia!!!
Later I reinstalled ZipGenius (using the suite this time) and was able to figure out how to switch language to English.
Just after installing ZipGenius, my machine started getting Windows Explorer Invalid Page Faults...caused by ZipGenius???, when in doubt...I uninstalled it.
Several months later, I tried ZipGenius 5.1. First I tried installing the Studio Edition - 5.1 Std edition was very buggy - maybe it was a beta version.
Then I installed the Suite Edition. It features an interesting (Windows Xp-like) interface on Windows 98SE. Somehow I was able delete ALL the files from an archive when only wanting to delete selected one (I show have read the dialog box more carefully perhaps).
Performance-wise, it took just 5 seconds to delete files from the 74.1 Mb test zip file...
Next I tried ZipStar 4.0 "Free for non-commercial use"
Jawohl - looks very efficient - it installs MFC60xx.dll and other dlls though.
It looked fast, so I wanted to test its speed, but when I opened big file, it showed directory structure, and I could not figure out how to see ALL files in ALL directories...oh well.
One of the supported archive file types are SQX files, but they do not have password protection.
Version 4.2 was released on July 16, 2003 - I may give it try later.
When I first tried ZipGenius, it was at version 1.4 .
I missed something in the Impressive installation, and when I ran it, ALL the program captions, menus etc. etc. were in Italian..Mama Mia!!!
Later I reinstalled ZipGenius (using the suite this time) and was able to figure out how to switch language to English.
Just after installing ZipGenius, my machine started getting Windows Explorer Invalid Page Faults...caused by ZipGenius???, when in doubt...I uninstalled it.
Several months later, I tried ZipGenius 5.1. First I tried installing the Studio Edition - 5.1 Std edition was very buggy - maybe it was a beta version.
Then I installed the Suite Edition. It features an interesting (Windows Xp-like) interface on Windows 98SE. Somehow I was able delete ALL the files from an archive when only wanting to delete selected one (I show have read the dialog box more carefully perhaps).
Performance-wise, it took just 5 seconds to delete files from the 74.1 Mb test zip file...
Next I tried ZipStar 4.0 "Free for non-commercial use"
Jawohl - looks very efficient - it installs MFC60xx.dll and other dlls though.
It looked fast, so I wanted to test its speed, but when I opened big file, it showed directory structure, and I could not figure out how to see ALL files in ALL directories...oh well.
One of the supported archive file types are SQX files, but they do not have password protection.
Version 4.2 was released on July 16, 2003 - I may give it try later.
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Zip Utilities - reviews
Freeware 100K_Zipper (ver 1.21) (100ziper.exe) - very small, but at the price of functionality. It's very easy to do something you're not expecting to do, like extract all of the files in a zip archive.
Freeware Ultimate Zip (ver 2.7.1)
Ultimate Zip has a batch compressor, which looks interesting, as well as numerous other features.
CAM Unzip v 3.1
Free Zip and unzip.
Very simplistic, but does not install a lot of files.
Uses Infozip's DLLs...
Warning - Associates itself with zip files without asking.
Can only zip and unzip ZIP Format archives.
NOTE - the interface is rather simplistic, but more useable than 100K_Zipper...
WinIMP ver 1.21
Installs a small program, which handles zip, rar, and other compression formats, including a proprietary .IMP format.
This archiver can only create archives in ZIP and IMP format - but uncompresses the other formats...
It is Very Fast - deletes files from a 83,655Kb file in less than 5 seconds!
One caveat - after deleting files from the above-mentioned large zip file, it could not be opened with WinZip. However, WinImp seemed to be able to work with it just fine.
Shareware PowerArchiver 2003 v8.6
This was freeware until PowerArchiver 2001 - but now is shareware with a free trial period and prompts thereafter like Winzip, of which it is virtually a clone.
Performance Tests:
On a 900 MHz Pentium with 128 Mb RAM
PowerArchiver 2001 (version 6.11) - last freeware version took 5 seconds to delete some file from a large zip file (75,912KB - 74.1 Mb)
WinZip 7.0 took 3 seconds to delete the same amount of files from this same zip file
Ultimate Zip 2.7.1 took 10 seconds on the same file.
Freeware 100K_Zipper (ver 1.21) (100ziper.exe) - very small, but at the price of functionality. It's very easy to do something you're not expecting to do, like extract all of the files in a zip archive.
Freeware Ultimate Zip (ver 2.7.1)
Ultimate Zip has a batch compressor, which looks interesting, as well as numerous other features.
CAM Unzip v 3.1
Free Zip and unzip.
Very simplistic, but does not install a lot of files.
Uses Infozip's DLLs...
Warning - Associates itself with zip files without asking.
Can only zip and unzip ZIP Format archives.
NOTE - the interface is rather simplistic, but more useable than 100K_Zipper...
WinIMP ver 1.21
Installs a small program, which handles zip, rar, and other compression formats, including a proprietary .IMP format.
This archiver can only create archives in ZIP and IMP format - but uncompresses the other formats...
It is Very Fast - deletes files from a 83,655Kb file in less than 5 seconds!
One caveat - after deleting files from the above-mentioned large zip file, it could not be opened with WinZip. However, WinImp seemed to be able to work with it just fine.
Shareware PowerArchiver 2003 v8.6
This was freeware until PowerArchiver 2001 - but now is shareware with a free trial period and prompts thereafter like Winzip, of which it is virtually a clone.
Performance Tests:
On a 900 MHz Pentium with 128 Mb RAM
PowerArchiver 2001 (version 6.11) - last freeware version took 5 seconds to delete some file from a large zip file (75,912KB - 74.1 Mb)
WinZip 7.0 took 3 seconds to delete the same amount of files from this same zip file
Ultimate Zip 2.7.1 took 10 seconds on the same file.
Freeware Text Editors
I've been trying out some freeware text editors, mainly to edit source code.
Crimson Editor is quite a good one. It has some bugs though, like when saving a file to a different Drive (on the network) it saves an empty file.
Also, when using Crimson Editor to open a file from the Windows Explorer, if the Filename contains spaces, Crimson Editor makes a total mess-up.
Another freeware text editor I'm trying is jEdit, which needs a the Jave Runtime (an 8 Mb download - trying to get jEdit to work with Windows Jave machine just looked like too much of a hassle ), and once jEdit is installed, it takes up a further 12 Mb.
It is a bit slow to load, even slower than Crimson Editor, but then it has a reason to be slow - it is running in an interpreted environment
However, I'm quite impressed with jEdit. It seems very powerful, totally configurable (I would just like to be able to totaly change the toolbar in on shot, not one icon at a time.
I've been trying out some freeware text editors, mainly to edit source code.
Crimson Editor is quite a good one. It has some bugs though, like when saving a file to a different Drive (on the network) it saves an empty file.
Also, when using Crimson Editor to open a file from the Windows Explorer, if the Filename contains spaces, Crimson Editor makes a total mess-up.
Another freeware text editor I'm trying is jEdit, which needs a the Jave Runtime (an 8 Mb download - trying to get jEdit to work with Windows Jave machine just looked like too much of a hassle ), and once jEdit is installed, it takes up a further 12 Mb.
It is a bit slow to load, even slower than Crimson Editor, but then it has a reason to be slow - it is running in an interpreted environment
However, I'm quite impressed with jEdit. It seems very powerful, totally configurable (I would just like to be able to totaly change the toolbar in on shot, not one icon at a time.
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