14 DAY TRIAL // There may be some of you that remember the days when a 1GB hard disk was a hell of a lot of storage room. You had to use that Windows component to archive you files and gain some space. A lot has changed since then and today we mostly use archives for P2P sharing, for sending multiple files over the Internet or for decreasing the download time.
Considering how cheap storage devices have become, there is little chance for a user to employ archiving as a way to gain some more space on the HDD. And now you can even be choosy in what concerns the brand of the HDD as there is very little price variation.
However, the market is filled with applications able to compress your files to more than 50% of the original data. Generally, the process does not take too much time and you can choose where you want your archive to be stored. And the most important thing is that freebies like PeaZip or 7Zip are accessible and their competence is almost equal to commercial applications.
The number of new archive formats increased at speedy rates as the new applications began to create their own extensions which in turn were supported by some other applications. Nowadays the standards are set in a certain measure and ZIP and RAR are generally used for file compression. But other formats like ISO, TAR, GZIP, 7Z, ACE, or LHA an LHZ are also employed, not to mention the world wide known EXE.
Unzip Me is a free tool designed for one purpose only: decompressing your files. The archive types it can deal with are limited to ZIP. It is a product of Camtech 2000, a company offering tens of useful freewares. The majority are designed for XP environment but you can give them a try on Vista, too.
Unzip Me comes with a plain interface that even a neophyte could feel comfortable with. There aren't any settings to make and no complicated options will stand in your way. The developer found a way around all the abundance of configuration options available in other softwares.
With Unzip Me, the toughest thing is to find the archive you want to decompress. As soon as this step is complete you will be displayed with the contents of the archive. The compressed folder is unwrapped right before your eyes. Unfortunately, there is no possibility of extracting only some of the files so decompressing the entire folder is mandatory.
I tested the application's capacity of extracting large folders and gradually fed it with larger and larger zips. For up to 100MB archives there was absolutely no problem and the extraction went smooth and quite fast. Starting with 120MB, Unzip Me showed signs of "tiredness" and had to pause for a few seconds in order to catch its breath. In the meantime, the title bar of the software showed that the program was non-responsive. But, a few seconds later, Unzip Me came to its senses and continued the process.
The result of the extraction will be automatically placed in the same folder with the archive (check the information in the lower part of the screen). Some may argue about the restriction of storing it wherever on the disk, but think that this is a great way to keep track of your extractions. "Open Directory" button in the lower right hand corner will unfold the residence directory giving you fast access to the files with the least effort.
During the archive extraction process, you will be able to see the progress of the operation. Too bad there is no estimation of the time to complete or of the size of the resulting folder. The application will show the size of the extraction at any time but the darn thing displays it in bytes so it is quite difficult to get an idea of the amount of space it would take.
Unzip Me provides you with a two-step method of extracting ZIP archives. For smaller files, the process is fast enough, but when it comes to larger archives it will have to rest a while and gain new forces in order to complete the operation.
The Good
First of all, Unzip Me is absolutely free of charge. It can be used for extracting archives with extraordinary ease. There are no settings to configure, no complicated options, just a two-step method of decompressing your files.
The Bad
Too much simplicity leads to all sorts of needs which otherwise you would have taken for granted. Integration with Windows shell is the first thing the users would want.
The Truth
The application does not support more archive formats because it is designed for the programs developed by Camtech 2000 and these are supplied to the user as ZIP files.
It is very easy to use and works great with small files. But if you put it to test with something larger the process is not as smooth as you want.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
