A list of applications reviewed by migo

[migo]

This isn't quite the same as slimy and CrisCr0ss, I'm doing less apps and more detail. I hope you find this useful as well.

I'll add more software as I go, I'll try to do one category at a time.

Decompression Software

I only use archive software for decompression, so I won't be reviewing compression capabilities

(besides, maximumcompression.com does a better job than I ever could).

I mainly deal with .zip and .rar, although .7z does occasionally show up, so I'm only focusing

on programs that handle all 3 formats.

WinRAR 3.51

WinRAR will extract archives from within Explorer, just right click the archive and select "Extract

Here" or "Extract To", this is quite handy and what I do most of the time. The interface is also

good, it has a ".." directory for going up, which is handy especially when you're dealing with

archives within archives. It is a bit of a pain having to type in the whole directory each time,

especially from a temp directory when I open an archive from the 'net instead of downloading it.

WinRAR can be set up to use a virus scanner if you have one, which is handy, especially if your scanner can't scan within archives.

It does its job well, but it is trialware, and I don't see the point in paying for it just for its decompression capabilities.

PowerArchiver 2006 9.50

PowerArchiver has much the same capabilities as WinRAR, but is better in several areas. First, when you're extracting from the interface it defaults to the last used directory, which is most often what I want anyway, and is never the temp directory. With temp archives, PowerArchiver offers to save the archive permenantly when you close, most of the time I don't use this option but it does beat having to redownload the archive if you decide you wanted to save it after all. PowerArchiver also has the option to automatically run certain setup files in an archive upon opening.

PowerArchiver has a couple features I haven't seen in other programs, so it is actually worth paying for if those features are important to you (autorun setup files and offering to save temp archives).

TugZip 3.4

TugZip is free, which is a bonus, and although it does its job it is slow in loading, every other program opens the archive right away, while TugZip takes at least 5 seconds for me, even with a 4kB archive. It has the same context menu extraction options as WinRAR, and from the interface it extracts to the last used directory, like PowerArchiver, it also has several interface options, the 3 pane option allows it to work practically as an Explorer replacement. I never got around to checking if it haz virus scanner support.

It's free, and it does its job, but the delays in opening were more of a pain than WinRAR's defaulting to the temp directory for extracting temp archives.

7-Zip 4.32

7-Zip is free, small and quick. The contextual menu options are in a submenu, which is an option (though not the default) with WinRAR, I like it because it keeps the menu relatively uncluttered, there are enough programs adding stuff to the menu that I don't need 6 more, only one of which I regularly use in the main menu. The interface isn't quite as intuitive as the other programs, I wouldn't have guessed that the "-" was extract, but I also removed text labels so I got what I deserved there. 7-Zip doesn't set the default directory to the last used directory, which is a little inconvenient, but not as annoying as WinRAR's default. 7-Zip does not appear to have virus scanner support.

Overall, I'd recommend 7-Zip, simply because it's small, fast and does its job well, took me a little while longer (ie, 30 seconds) to figure out the interface but it is just as good as the other ones, just a bit different.

ZipZag 1.73

I actually haven't used this program in ages, it's trialware. It worked well and supports almost every format out there, so if you need to extract a large variety of archives it's worth looking into.

Edited March 4, 2006 by migo

[denzy_]

nice work so far.

[migo]

Thanks!

Filesharing Software

Some of these programs I use all the features, some I use only the basic features, so I might be missing some more advanced things from certain programs.

uTorrent

Since trying uTorrent I haven't found anything better, feature wise it beats out every other torrent client that I've tried, and it uses much less resources. It's an all-in-one type torrent program like Azureus and BitComet (as opposed to BitTorrent and BitTornado), which I personally prefer since I just have to launch the program when I restart and it will continue all the torrents where it left off. It has a wide range of settings, you can schedule bandwidth throttling, both upstream and downstream at certain times. You can control maximum up or down speed on a per torrent basis, you can have a maximum number of seeding or leeching torrents, you can set torrents to stop after a certain point, and more. It's not quite as good as BitComet in the port department, since you can only set one port instead of setting a port range, but I haven't had any problems with only setting one port. uTorrent also has the feature originally in BitComet of letting you select which files in a torrent to download and which ones to leave out. Unfortunately it doesn't adjust the full torrent size according to what you have selected, but that's a minor gripe, and will probably be fixed eventually. uTorrent will test if your ports are open, and will also give you a straight link to DSL reports which will tell you your upload and download bandwidth. By the time you're reading this review, there's probably more features in uTorrent in the newest update.

I definitely recommend it, it's a great little program and does more while using less.

BitComet and Azureus are OK, but both (especially Azureus) are huge resource hogs, and neither offers any features that uTorrent doesn't offer so I'm not bothering with them.

DC++ 0.674

That's actually not the newest version but I haven't found a need to upgrade. DC++ is pretty much the only Direct Connect client you can use, and a lot of places 0.674 is the earliest version of it you can still use. Every other client is banned on a lot of hubs, so if you want to get any use out of Direct Connect, DC++ is your only option. It works by connecting to hubs where you can browse other users' file lists or just do searches for a file you're looking for. You download the files 1 to 1, which sometimes makes things quicker (they're only uploading to you, not to 100 people) and sometimes slower (you're only downloading from one person, not 100 people). I've had uploads as high as 600kB/s although unfortunately I haven't had downloads that quickly, but obviously someone else was getting a 600kB/s download. It has active and passive connection options, active is better, but some ISPs make it difficult or impossible (for example, mine), so often you'll have to settle with passive. If you're passive you can't connect to other passive users. It opperates a lot like IRC except it's filesharing oriented instead of chat oriented. DC++ is hard to figure out to use for new users, some people I've reccomended it to just couldn't figure it out, so obviously it's not too intuitive, and took me a while to figure out. If you can figure it out and take a little time with it, you'll get good results, especially if you're looking for niche downloads. DC++ doesn't let you throttle upload or download speeds, which can be a bit of a problem, and requires you to use a 3rd party program like NetPeeker to do it.

I recommend it, but overall Torrents are better just in terms of being able to find what you want as well as being easier to use. I use both, but if you want just one then uTorrent wins out slightly.

eMule 0.47a

Emule has both a server based network as well as a distributed network, Wikipedia's entry on eMule explains it well so I won't bother going into detail. It has a lot in common with Napster or KaZaA in how you find files (enter the search string and it brings back results, with certain results being more or less likely on certain servers) but has advantages of Torrents like being able to upload parts of partially downloaded files. eMule also has a great balance in finding rare files as well as fast downloads. If something is really rare, eMule will probably find it but it'll be quite slow. If you have a popular file it will download quite quickly, matching Torrent speeds in some cases. I've also used MorphXT 8.1, but haven't found any additional features it has to be of use so the basic eMule client is fine. I've given eMule Plus a shot as well, but eMule minus is really a better name for it.

Emule is really good for mainstream downloads, niche downloads are better from hubs (DC++) or trackers (uTorrent), but it's still worth keeping on your computer, it's one of the better ones for just music specifically as well.

Soulseek 1.57-Test 8

Soulseek is specifically designed for music, especially indy music and you can browse various chat rooms based on genre and browse other users' music files. It's actually quite good for finding music, but recently downloading is the pits. I haven't been able to download anything I want off it for a long time. Users can set it so only friends can download from them, but their search results still turn up, so the majority of the results returned just won't work. Some also have a download que, so you've gotta wait in line for another 100 or more users to download from that user before you get your shot at downloading. A lot of them also have rules that you actually have to browse their files to find, often about only downloading one file from them at a time, so if you want to download an entire album you'll get banned from that user for breaking their rules which you never knew about.

I still have it on my computer, and use it as a last resort if I can't find anything on my other programs, but until they fix things up I don't see it being hugely useful to anyone.

KCEasy 0.16

KCEasy is a multinetwork program, and is the windows frontend for giFT which is a plugin based system that allows different networks to be added or removed according to your liking. Ultimately it just accesses the different networks (Ares, FastTrack, Gnutella 1 and OpenFT - it's own network) seperately, it doesn't integrate them. So while you'll sometimes get 4 users of the same file, they'll each be on a differrent network and you still can only download from one user since none of the networks are based around hashing. It's a bit of a pity but otherwise it works really well, and cuts down on resources. It's not programmed in Java or Python so it's not a huge RAM or CPU hog. It sometimes doesn't connect to all the networks, or takes a while to connect to them, but once it's fully connected you can get as high as 150 million gigabytes that you have access to. It's not terribly fast, but again that's based on the networks more than the program. The ares network you need a seperate plugin for, the other 3 networks come supported by default. Other networks are also being worked on but they're not fully supported yet.

For both Ares and FastTrack it's the best option, Ares has an annoying 15 download max limit and you can't control which downloads go first properly if you have more than 15 downloads in que, KCEasy doesn't have this problem. KaZaA has spyware, and so far KCEasy is the only legal windows program I've found that supports FastTrack (K-Lite etc. is illegal because it reverse engineers KaZaA). It's the only program to support OpenFT (which isn't a huge deal but it is getting more users, and some stuff I'm starting to only find on OpenFT so it is valuable). Unfortunately it only supports Gnutella 1, and not Gnutella 2, so for both Gnutella networks another program might be more viable. Overall I reccommend KCEasy, but it comes second last on my list of reccomendations, only ahead of Soulseek.

Edited March 4, 2006 by migo

[Smigit]

thanks.

Might be worth putting in red and green at the end a final rating or at least recomendation like the other guys have. Since your reviewing alot I dont personally wana read reviews to the ones that arent very good so it might be a good way to find at a glance what you like best.

Keep up the effort mate

[migo]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll add that in.

[Smigit]

thanks alot mate. :)