BitZipper

Product Details

This Product Review is in the following Category:
Security Services, Managed Services, Email Services

This Product Review is in the following Sub-category:
Email Managed Security Services

	Version:	4.1
	Vendor:	Bitberry Software
	Website:	www.bitzipper.com
	Price:	$24.95
	Date:	21-Jul-04
	Author:	René Millman

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It would seem that compression and encryption are fast becoming the best of friends. BitZipper is the latest in a line of compression applications trying to eat away at WinZip's dominance by adding high-grade encryption into the deal.

The software prides itself on its ability to deal with more compression file types than WinZip as well as 256-bit AES encryption (which can be found in WinZip 9.0). Setting up is easy enough and offers a wizard just as WinZip does. The installation is slightly less convoluted than WinZip.

When firing up the user console the interface seems clear enough and as an added feature a user can browse the zipped file as a tree view. Although for most files with a flat file system this is not strictly necessary to see. But adding an entire folder will appear in the tree view making the layout slightly more clear.

From the security professional point of view, while there is encryption and it works, it is difficult to encrypt files. This is because the option to encrypt files is hidden away in the menu structure. It also appears that once files are archived they cannot be subsequently encrypted without creating an entirely new zip file.

While Bitzipper is cheaper than WinZip and has better file type support the encryption is far easier to use in WinZip. Again, these are different horses for courses and each one has its own set of benefits.

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