Kicking off our first ever software review week at Connect, we decided start it off with a great archiving utility that may look similar to an application you may already use.

You may be wondering what I mean by archiving utility, it’s something you probably use most often but don’t know about it, or you’re still using the one built into Windows XP/Vista. An archiving utility unzips, “unrars”, and unstuffs various file formats that compress multiple files into one usually smaller sized file.

What attracted me to PowerArchiver 2007 was the interface that is similar to the new “ribbon” interface in Office 2007 that you may already be familiar with (see image below).

Besides the interface, PowerArchiver 2007 really isn’t that different from other archiving utilities such as WinZip or WinRAR. Although, one feature that I have yet to try out is the encryption, allowing AES encryption at 128-bit, 192-bit, and 256-bit supported in PKZip, Secure Zip, and WinZip. Another cool feature allows you to automate backups and compress them into a ZIP file or 4 other compression formats of your choice, and also allows you to upload the backup to an FTP or Secure FTP server, great for people with large web space.

PowerArchiver 2007 of course supports the new Windows Vista operating system from Microsoft and is available today for $19.95. It’s worth it alone for the backups!

Pros

• Revolutionary new interface.
• Automated backup system.
• Excellent encryption feature.

Cons

• None.

Final Verdict
5 out of 5 stars.

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