Bandizip 5.15

★ Winner of Best Archiver in 2017 and 2014.

Overview

From the popular software company Bandisoft comes Bandizip, a freeware solution for all kinds of users who want to easily manage ZIP files. Of course it’s not easy to give up on popular ZIP programs such as WinRar, WinZip, 7-Zip and others, but you should definitely give this one a try, as it has a lot of features packed in a great interface. You can zip multiple files/folders, unzip compressed files, check them for corruption, etc. One of the main advantages of this program is its processing speed, as it supports multi-core compression.

Installation

The installation procedure is quite easy and is only a one step long. After launching the installer, you are asked to choose installation language. Then, you will be prompted to make a few basic settings (which are basically the common steps you come across in any typical program’s installation procedure); when you’re done, click “Install” and the main installation process will begin.

As you can see from our antivirus report, the application has no malware included. It does offer however to install Honeyview, another program developed by Bandisoft.

Supported operating systems are Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 (32/64-bit), plus there’s a version for Mac OS X too.

Interface

After you have installed the program, the Settings window will open which asks you to select the file types that you want associated with Bandizip. You might make other options as well, since you’re already in the settings menu, or you can click “OK” and continue to the main window.

The application’s main interface is neat, and everyone can get familiar to it without much effort. There’s the menu bar at the top, and the toolbar below it. The toolbar has 8 buttons: Open, Extract, New, Add, Delete, Test, Columns and Code Page.

The main screen is divided into 2 areas: the central area for viewing the contents of ZIP archives, and a pane on the left, which includes a tree-view for navigating through directories inside zipped files and a preview screen for previewing images selected in the first area.

Pros

Bandizip supports the following file types for both extraction and compression: Zip(z01), ZipX(zx01), TAR, TGZ, 7Z(7z.001), LZH, ISO, EXE(e01).

Additionally, there are various file types supported for extraction only: RAR(part1.rar, r01), ACE, AES, ALZ, APK, JAR, UDF, BIN and many others.

A unique feature of Bandizip is its ability to archive files many times faster by taking advantage of multi-core processors. If your computer is equipped with more than one processor, then Bandizip will automatically detect it and enable the multi-core feature.

It can create self-extracting files (.EXE), multi-volume archives, and can also encrypt archives using two very secure methods: ZipCrypto and AES 256. Other general features include support for Unicode (you can change text encoding via the “Code Page” button) and direct extraction to the destination folder with the Fast Drag & Drop feature. You can also compress files using the options in Windows’ context menu.

Cons

No cons here.

Alternatives

You have probably heard of WinRar (mainly free), 7-Zip (free) and WinZip (paid), which are most popular tools for managing archives. If you’re looking for applications other than those, then PeaZip (free), HaoZip (free), PowerArchiver (paid), BetterZip (paid) and KGB Archiver (free) are nice alternatives.

Conclusion

This is a very nice choice for those who want to escape from using the usual tools for managing zip files. Bandizip looks good, is simple and does the job. What else could you ask for?