ZIP is the most well known archive format, despite its relatively low rate of compression. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of programs that are able to work with ZIP files. Some of them are not even archivers, but I'll leave those behind for now (if you wonder what I'm leaving behind now, think about ACDSee and its ability to view pictures found inside ZIP archives). Today's topic is an archiver, and its name is Quick Zip.

Despite its name, this program supports 14 archive types, including ZIP, of course. Quick Zip is free, small, pretty fast and has enough features to make it interesting.

The setup program has over 4MB in size, and I think it's a great deal to get the ability to work with 14 archive types in a download so small. This program is all about features and ease of use, if you need compression power, then get 7-zip, UHA or WinRar.

The interface of this program serves its purpose. The icons from the toolbar are a bit large in my opinion, but this shouldn't be much of a problem. The panels can be resized or hidden as you need them, and the icons can be changed with new ones.

Now let's have a quick tour of the goodies available here, shall we?

First, let's suppose we have archives that need to be sent using different methods. What kind of methods? Well, FTP and e-mail are the most common ones. Quick Zip can upload archives to FTP servers or send them through e-mail, don't worry.

A useful tool that I found in this program is its multi rename tool, and I don't have to tell you the difference between renaming files manually, one by one, and using an automated tool!

Adding and extracting files to and from archives is nothing special, but not all archivers can test archives, scan them for viruses or preview multimedia content from them.

When working with lots of files, Bookmarks are a "must have". Quick Zip may be quick, but its creator didn't rush it, so it has included this feature too.

I already told you about the multi rename feature, now I have to tell you about three more tools that can prove to be great time savers in the right hands. First, we have the MultiExtract and Batch Zip. They enable the user to pack or unpack a large number of archives automatically.

The last tool that I will talk about is the Archive Converter, which can also be used to convert multiple archives into another format (the problem that may occur in this case is that all source archives will be converted into a single format, so you can't take three different ones and convert them into more than one archive type).

I will leave the Backup Script Generator and the other hidden treasures for you to discover and I'll stop here. If you are not one of those who have been using a single archive format and the same program for their whole life, then Quick Zip is an application worth trying!


The Good

The best things about this program are its ease of use and the features available, like the multi renamer, the ability to use skins and the large amount of archive types supported. The Help file is a great way to get your engine started with Quick Zip.


The Bad

This program can't be employed as a file manager and I couldn't find anywhere the compression settings. I guess most people would like to be able to set their compression ratio and other settings, and I can't really imagine an archiver without these. A last thing that I found to be really bad for my eye was the About screen (check it for yourselves, I won't say more about it).


The Truth

Quick Zip is not the best archiver out there; it doesn't have its own file format and doesn't offer some options that I consider very important. Why should one use it, then? There are several reasons: ease of use, large number of archive types supported, attractive features.

The choice is yours, and I think that a ten-minute run can't do you any harm. After that, it's entirely your decision. Good luck!


Here are some snapshots of the application in action: