14 DAY TRIAL // I am always under heavy stress when I have to go away from home, no matter if it's a matter of days or weeks. Packing my bags is one of my nightmares, because there's always something to forget and when your train is just about to leave, you figure out that you still have to pack that, that, that and the other...
Leaving the bags aside, packing files is always easier to do. All you have to do is get an archiver and help it with a few mouse clicks, the rest of it is out of your hands, and when you are using reliable tools, this is the best path to choose. Today has come the time for a legendary program that started way back, in 1989, and its name is PKZIP.
When Phil Katz released its ZIP archiver, it was a DOS command-line tool and was distributed as shareware with a $25 registration fee, and today's PKZIP that runs on Windows operating systems comes as a 30 days trial version and its registration cost is 24.95$, so things didn't change that much on this side. Anyway, you can't compare the 9.00.0010 version that I have here with those ancient command line interface programs released in the 90's, and this is not what I am trying to do.
PKZIP's setup package has exactly 8MB in size and installing it was a real pleasure, but this isn't something out of the ordinary, since I can't name a single archiver that is hard to install these days. These being said, I guess the time has come to check the usual things we are looking for when using a new program, the interface and features, of course.
The perception of the surrounding world may be a matter of tastes in many cases, and this time is the same, at least for me. At first glance, I thought that this program looks like WinZip, but this can be said about 75% of the existing packers, and it's the same as saying that one man looks like the other because they both have a head, two hands and two feet... Anyway, the only thing I can say about PKZIP's interface now is that you get what you pay for - it has great graphics, three useful wizards for those who like to be guided all along the way and, of course, the tools are organized in such a manner that even your kids can use this program!
PKZIP should be an excellent ZIP tool and nothing more, if we consider its name, but - fortunately - that's not true. The program we have here can work with the following archive types: ARJ, BZIP2, CAB, JAR, LZH, RAR, TAR, ZIP and a few others. Some of them are only supported for extracting files, while others can be read and written as well.
I was talking earlier about wizards... Well, there are three wizards available here, and they can help you with the archive creation, updating and extracting operations. Well, nothing special so far, but what about 256bit AES encryption with the chance to also encrypt file names? This one sounds great, although it's also available in 7-Zip.
The current archive can be easily sent through email straight from this program, a single click in the right place will open your current email client with a new message having the archive as an attachment.
The Favorites area is very easy to use and the favorite archives can be managed really easy. The interface is highly customizable, including the view mode and toolbar items. Testing of archives and installation of archived setup packages are also at hand, as well as virus scanning or the addition of digital signatures, a really interesting feature that I've noticed here.
Things look good, and it's a pleasure to see such old programs still alive and kicking. My next wish that I can think of now is to see ARJ getting such a worthy Windows version and take of from the command line interface swamp, but until that happens, we have enough time to draw the conclusions, check the screenshots and, as things are moving in their camp, make some kids, watch them grow, send them to school...
The Good
PKZIP is easy to use, has a lot of interesting features, an excellent interface and a comprehensive documentation. At last, its price is really good considering its fame and history together with what I just told you about...
The Bad
Support for ACE and 7Z formats would be a nice addition, as well as the ability to use toolbar icon packs or even full skins.
The Truth
I won't stop using 7-Zip, but I must admit that PKZIP is sexier and brings back a lot of forgotten memories about huge command lines with tons of parameters for creating multi volume archives, adding password and other things that many computer users today don't know about...but the dark future has a really friendly face now, so all of you, young and old, beginner or expert, can experience the PKZIP power! Enjoy it, because I know I did!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
