Overview

FileStream TurboZIP is a fine solution for managing archives. It is intended for use not only from experienced users, but from novices as well due to its ZIP wizard and simple interface in general. With a big list of supported file formats, the chances that this program is not the right one for you are slim.

Installation

Installing the product is very, very easy. Just launch the installer, and follow the instructions in the screen. A few steps afterwards the program will being installing. It is safe to install as it includes no harmful software, or any additional programs either.

It runs smoothly under Windows XP, 2003 Server, Vista, 2008 Server, 7 and 8.

Interface

The interface is stylish and modern, with all the features organized in the menu bar and toolbar. The main window is divided in 3 panels: the Catalog panel, the File List panel and the Preview Panel. The first panel shows all archives in an Explorer-style view, by expanding the catalogs. Catalogs are used to manage all your archives and emails. The File list panel shows all the containing files of the selected item in the Catalog panel. By highlighting any file in this panel, its preview will be shown in the Preview panel. You can preview images, text files, animations, videos and other kinds of files.

Pros

TurboZIP supports the following file formats: ZIP, Java Archive JAR, RAR, CAB, ARJ, LHA (lzh), 7-Zip (.7z), Bzip2 (.bz, .bz2) archives, and ISO image (.iso), Self-Extracting ZIP, JAR, LHA (exe) files, Microsoft Office 2007 archives (docm, docx, dotm, dotx, potm, potx, ppam, ppsm, ppsx, pptm, pptx, xlsb, xlsm, xlsx, xltm, and xltx), Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (.chm), Microsoft Windows Installer (.msi), Unix Z archives (gz, taz, tgz, z), UNIX TAR archives, UU Encoded E-Mail (uue, uu), MIME e-mail (mme, mim, b64), Mac BinHex (bhx, hqx), Outlook (msg), Outlook Express (eml) e-mail. As you can see, this list not small at all. Having tested most of the above file formats, we can safely say that this program is reliable and fast.

A new feature that has been implemented in the recent versions of TurboZIP is Thumbnail View, with which you can browse your photos by viewing them as thumbnails. Adjusting the slider changes the size of the thumbnails, which do not take up space in the disk since they are being shown on-the-fly.  Previewing those images, along with other multimedia files such as videos and text files is supported. There are built-in viewers for over 200 file formats, including Adobe Acrobat PDF, Microsoft Office, CAD (DWF, DWG, DXF), and HTML.

Cons

A few bugs exist in the program that sometimes the only solution is to close TurboZIP and hope that they won’t appear next time. For example, while resizing the panels in the window, an error message would appear and wouldn’t stop popping up. You’d have to terminate the program’s process from the Task Manager in order to fix this.

Alternatives

The most popular archive managers are WinZIP and WinRAR, both of which are shareware. They both share about the same features and have a lot of features, including powerful compression methods, a scanner for corrupt archives and virus scans. Few programs can match up to them, two of them being 7-Zip (free) and Universal Extractor (free).

Conclusion

Managing your archives can be a painful task, especially when handling many of them regularly. Using TurboZIP you can save time and trouble with operations with those archives. It is highly recommended.