14 DAY TRIAL // Although we have at our disposal 4GB DVDs and hundred gigabyte hard drives, the majority of users are still archiving data almost everyday and I don't think there is as much as one PC that doesn't have a file compression application, WinRAR, WinAce or WinZip.
On today's archiving menu we have the latest version of WinZip, 10.0 beta, which comes with a lot of novelties. I'm not going to talk about the changes in interface, because you can find out about those in the application's help section, or about the fact that from now on, WinZip will come in two versions: Standard and Professional, (certain features, such as writing the zip archives on CDs will only be available in the Pro version), instead we will analyze the program's performances.
For this purpose, we created a folder with several files that amounted to 100MB. Then, we archived them with WinZip and WinRAR 3.5.
With the SuperFast method, the archiving operation lasted approximately 5 minutes, the compression rate being 83%. Through the Maximum Portable method, the archiving time increased to 10 minutes, but the compression rate reached 64%. By using the Maximum (PPMd) method, one of WinZip 10's new algorithms, we got an archive of approximately 54 MB, which means a compression rate of almost 52%, the archiving time being 17 minutes.
With WinRAR's Store method the size of the archive was reduced with only 15%, which means a compression rate of 85%; the archiving operation lasted 6 minutes. By using WinRAR's Maximum mode, we got a 67 MB archive in approximately 14 minutes. On the other hand, WinRAR required fewer resources.
With WinZip 10.0's Maximum Portable method, the CPU usage level reached 57%, while WinRAR's Maximum algorithm implied only 45%.
It's worth mentioning that the beta version proved to be extremely stable during the tests.
WinZip 10.0 Beta is available for download here and it has been certified by Softpedia as being 100% Clean.
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