Winzip remains the most popular compression tool for Windows and the recently released version 10 offers some interesting new features.

The familiar classic and wizard interface options from version 9 are present, along with a new Explorer-style version. The latter makes it far easier to delve into zip files with a large folder hierarchy.

The process of actually creating and reading zip files can only be taken so far, so Winzip has decided to spread its wings with version 10.

With more and more people worried about losing their data, Winzip 10 lets you schedule regular automated zip tasks. For example, you can mark the My Documents folder to be compressed to a zip file every day.

Winzip 10 offers an FTP upload service to send your zips direct to a remote server. It also lets you burn the contents of a zip file direct to CD or DVD.

A couple of new compression options are included, in the form of Ppmd and Bzip2. We tried them on different files, with varying results. Text files seemed to benefit the most (sometimes as much as 35 per cent compared to Winzip 9’s best efforts), while pre-compressed files such as jpegs showed little or no improvement.

The problem with using either of these formats is that, if you decide to distribute your file, the recipient must have Winzip 10 or another decompression utility supporting Ppmd or Bzip2.

If the scheduling of zips, FTP upload and direct CD/DVD burning features don’t interest you, there is a cut-down Standard version for $29.95 (approx £17).

While most people will be perfectly happy with the Standard version, Winzip 10 Pro has some excellent new features that will suit more advanced users and small businesses.

System requirements:
5.5MB hard disk
Windows 98/2000/ME/XP