I will start this week with another archiving utility, and the main reason is that there are so many good ones around, so...why not? I'll leave the theory and stories behind ZIP file format and archiving aside and I'll jump straight to our subject.
Six years ago, an immature program named Filzip changed its name into Filzip 2000 and soon after that reached its first final version, 1.1. It was an archiving utility developed by only one man, just the same as it is today.

The programmer remained the same, but the name changed into Filzip again and the features available increased with time, making it a good competitor to other similar products that we can find today.

Now, Filzip is a grown up application, its latest version being numbered 3.06. Oh...I forgot a very important problem: Filzip is also free for personal and even commercial use for now, and in the near future there will be also a completely optional paid version, with the same features as the free one.

Don't worry about nag screens or other annoying things, they won't be here. This new paid version will be available to support the program's author if you like this program and find it useful for you. Let's see what's hidden behind the Filezip name!

The setup program has only 1.2MB in size, but don't let this fool you! This program is small, easy to use and has enough features available to help you with most daily archiving tasks.

Filzip's interface is good for its purpose, but I have a little problem with it. I can't understand why all the toolbar icons are green! It may be a problem for my own personal tastes, but I think everybody likes diversity in life. Concerning this issue, I think it would be a pretty good idea to change this program's name into GreenZip or MarsZip (I guess all of you have heard about "the green people from Mars"...).

Let's get serious and check the features of this program, because an archiving tool is always more about file formats supported and ease of use than just an interface.

Before everything else, let's finish reviewing the interface. You can use an Explorer-style interface or just uncheck this option and get rid of the tree view. Filzip is very easy to use, having a menu bar, the toolbar from Mars that I just told you about and the main window.

I was very pleased to find that Filzip can send archives through email or print them, but unfortunately can't upload them to FTP servers yet. I hope this is one of the features standing on the front rows of the current "TO DO" list, and I move on.

Now I have to tell you a few words about the extra features that can be found inside this program. There's nothing special or unseen here, just a bunch of good features gathered inside the Extras menu. Archive conversion, ZIP repair, AES encryption and decryption or multiple archive extraction are most important options available here.

Since I told you about the advanced features, I won't forget about the basic ones: file support and standard archive operations.

Filzip fully supports ZIP (including Quake III's PK3), BH , CAB, JAR, LHA, TAR and GZIP file formats. Also, it can extract files from ACE, ARC, ARJ, RAR and ZOO archives and has support for Internet encoded files UUE and XXE.

At last,a few words about the basic archive operations. Apart from operations like add, extract, delete or view files from archive, you can view or write archive comments, rename files within ZIP archives, create self extracting archives or find files inside them.

I was just about to miss a very important point: the program's options. The ones that I am always after are the advanced archiving options, and I must say that Filzip has just about enough of them. You can't go too high, but you can set simple compression level (for all archive types) or advanced level (for different settings depending on the archive type).

This was my walk through Filzip land, and I must say I enjoyed it. I hope you will find the time to check this program and enjoy its use!

The Good

Best things about this program are its ease of use and the features available, like the multi extract feature, its advanced compression level settings and the fair amount of archive types supported.

The Bad

Filzip misses a bookmarking system, doesn't have a skinnable interface and the Help system lacks the screenshots.

The Truth

Filzip is not one of the greatest free archiving tools out there, but I can call it "very good" without fear. If we add the fact that it was developed by a single programmer, then we get to appreciate it even more. Leaving these facts aside, Filzip is an easy to use, fast and useful tool for everybody, so don't waste anymore time and get it now!

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: