Stick'n'Cut

A simple method to prevent malicious content from infiltrating important files and folders is to bundle them all in an archive. There are different types which evolved along the years, and some which can only be created and opened with dedicated applications. For instance, Stick'n'Cut can compress multiple files into a SPF archive, and help you extract later on.

You’re free to take the application for a spin as soon as download is done because there’s no setup involved. On the one hand, this means that you can easily carry it on a thumb drive to use whenever needed. On the other hand, this method of approach keeps registry entries clean, but you do need to be sure that Java Runtime Environment is on your computer.

The entire operation is pretty straightforward from start to end. Files you add are displayed in a compact main window, but loading them needs to be done through the browse dialog, because drag and drop is not a supported operation here. What’s more, the browse dialog itself can be a little frustrating since it only allows you to target one file at a time, and can’t be used to load entire directories.

A counter shows the total number of files on the list. Interacting with files has no effect, and you need to be extra careful when adding files because these can’t be individually removed from the list, except to clear it completely. You can associate the SPF file format with the application.

When done, hitting the “create” button bundles all files into a SPF archive in the source directory. Unfortunately, the process is plain, and compression ratio doesn’t really save any disk space. Extracting is done in a similar manner, and existing files are automatically replaced. It would have been useful to see context menu integration for faster approach.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that Stick'n'Cut comes with good intentions, but it’s level of simplicity does more harm to overall practicality than to actually come in handy. Only one type of archive is supported, and adding a large collection of files can take some time.