Review by H. Wang

In the days of high-speed internet connection, the need of compressing files for sending over internet is diminished. Now that window has a built-in program to unzip files directly, the usage of the WinZip is even further reduced. Even worse yet, window’s explorer provides a better user-interface experience than WinZip in terms of un-compressing function.

So, what do we expect from the aging WinZip package? The newly added features probably are the reasons to buy it. The watermarking option is quite useful for making sure photos posted online don’t get ripped off easily. The encryption option is another benefit to send sensitive materials over the wire. Also, WinZip can connect directly to the cloud folders (like SkyDrive, Dropbox…etc) and let you compress files, extract files and encrypt files in those size-limited folder. Another feature, WinZip allow you to covert files to PDF format. Doing so can prevent files from being editing by others.

All in all, WinZip is trying to stay alive by incorporating additional features. It’s no loner a must-have tool.