PKZIP Editor's Review

Compress and secure your data with this important Windows utility.

Putting it in the cloud is all the rage today.  Hundreds of thousands of people are storing data remotely so that they can access their data However, not everyone has a lot of or wants to pay for cloud storage. This is one of the reasons why I like apps like PKZip. It’s a file compression tool for Windows.

PKZip is a file compression tool that can compress files by up to 98%, saving valuable storage space and making file transfer easier.  You can compress and encrypt files directly from Microsoft Office using SecureZIP. Its really very easy. When using Microsoft Office, simply select “Save Copy as ZIP File” or "Save Copy as Secure ZIP File" to compress or encrypt directly from Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

Protecting your data is easy with PKZip.  It has support of AES or 3DES strong encryption. Files encrypted with PKZIP may be decrypted and extracted on all major computing platforms, including Windows, Mac OS, Unix and Linux.  You can rest assured that important data can be sent to and used by those that need it, regardless of where they are and what computing platform they use.

Getting your information where you need it is easy with PKZip, too.  PKZip also integrates with Microsoft Outlook, allowing automatic encryption of any email and/or attachment. Encrypted emails can be forwarded without the need to download and resave files. PKZIP can compress files that are over 9 exabytes in size (1EB = 1,000,000 terabytes); and allows users to combine up to two billion files into a single archive.

App Pro’s: MS Office compatibility, multiple compression format support,

App Con’s: Other packages can offer better compression ratios, for some file formats

Conclusion: PKZip is pretty decent software, and its comparably priced to other, popular file compression tools. While its compression ratios are good, its been my experience that other tools may be able to provide better compression algorithms and rates, but your mileage may vary. If you're looking for a decent file compression, archiving and compression tool, PKZip is a great choice and one that you should give serious consideration to.