14 DAY TRIAL // Compression utilities have been around us for a long time. And truth be told, could you live without them? I couldn't. They help you save space on your computer, or enable you to send files over the Internet. Many computer users do not know that the executables are also a compressed format. And when you install the application it'll actually decompress in your Program Files folder.
The following software is an Allume Systems, Inc. (former Aladdin Systems, Inc.) product and it is designed specifically to compress the files on your computer to lower sizes. Its cost is $24.99 and the size of the installation file is almost 14MB.
The types of compression the software will create are .sitx, .sit and .zip. You are probably wondering what's so special about the first two formats. Besides the fact that they provide a better compression and that StuffIt is the creator of the format, there is nothing special about it.
When I first opened the application, I was extremely impressed by the interface. The application welcomes you by making available the StuffIt wizards for creating a new archive, compressing and e-mailing the files, compressing and uploading the archives to FTP and opening an archive. I must admit that this way is much more fun than the no-wizard way.
But I am stubborn enough to pick the hard way and I must say that I was pretty disappointed. Not much of an interface, even though I toggled between the four themes of the software. And no matter how many items I added to create an archive, the application window still seemed empty.
So let's step through the software with the help of wizards. Creating a new archive is easy if you have the New Archive Wizard by your side. Add the files or the folders and click next to proceed to the Compression Settings. Here you can choose the archive format (Zip, StuffIt X or StuffIt) and the format options (compression method, compression level and memory). The compression method is available for all three archive formats, but they differ from format to format. Choose the appropriate one according to your level of patience when compressing or decompressing.
The user can choose to secure the compressed files by applying a protecting password to it. You can also add date and time stamps, in case you will ever need to know the exact moment of its creation. Pressing the Finish button will start the archiving process.
The steps are the same when you choose the second wizard Compress and Email. The only difference is that, before finishing, you will have to enter the recipients' e-mail address, a subject and the message. In email settings, you will have to enter the SMTP server and the Sender info.
Archiving and uploading the archives to FTP will require you to specify the server and its path or the URL along with your login information (username and password).
If you try to open an archive, you will probably notice that the software supports a new format besides the usual three I mentioned before. It will also work with decompressing .tar archive format.
StuffIt will create SEA files which come from Self Extracting Archives i.e. executables that can be decompressed without the aid of the application.
The Good
Although the software comes with its own archiving formats (StuffIt X - .sitx, and StuffIt - .sit) it offers a very good compression which results in smaller archives than Zip.
The interface of the application is nicely drawn and, if you stick to the wizards, you will do your job very fast and with the least effort.
The Bad
Do not try to be wise guys like I tried to, and use the program without the wizards, because the road there is very bumpy and you will lose a lot of time with compressing and decompressing the files or folders. Plus the interface in there is pretty arid.
The Truth
I compressed the same folder in all the three archiving formats the software supports and I must say that the two formats introduced by the software are not too far away from the famous .zip. I actually obtained better results with the .sitx and .sit formats.
The search tool will allow you to search fast for files and folders on your hard disc. And the SEA option (create .exe archives) makes the software a great tool for managing archives.
The best thing about the software is that, if you want to extract only one file from an archive, the decompression engine will not parse the whole archive and the desired file will be extracted very fast.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
