No matter how large a hard drive is, it gets full too fast. I always tried to proved myself that this sentence is wrong, so I upgraded my storage solutions each time I had the occasion, as time passed. Even if tomorrow I'll notice 3TB of free space, I know I'll manage to fill it pretty soon. After all, why not scan my old pictures at 1200DPI and store them on my hard drive at the best quality available? Anyway, there are plenty of methods to fill your hard drive, but when it comes to saving space, archiving your files is one of the best things to do...

Setup

Squeeze is the name of another archiving software that I didn't have the chance to encounter so far. To my shame, this is not a brand new application, since its last version is 5.6, so it has been around for a while. The setup package has 4MB in size, and the trial version works with all the features enabled for no less than 60 days, so you have plenty of time to decide if this program is worthy of its 37$ price. As you can see in the screenshots below, installing Squeeze is no big deal, so let's move on and talk about its interface.








Interface

Squeez has an interface that looks very good, is easy to use and highly customizable. As you can see in the screenshot to the left, the main window is well organized and gives quick acces to a quick view pane and a few other goodies with the help of the vertical tabs to the right side. Add wizards for the archiving operations to the pot and you get an excellent interface for almost any user today!

Features

When talking about what can be done with an archiver, first thing I have in mind is the file format support, and it was a really pleasant surprise to discover that Squeez can compress and decompress SQX, ZIP, ARJ, LZH, RAR, CAB, GZIP, TAR, UUE, ACE, JAR, BZIP and 7Z, being the one of the first commercial products that I encountered so far able to work with 7-Zip's archive format.

The built in Quick View tool allows you to check the contents of an archive without having to unpack it, and customizing virtually every aspect of the program is no problem. For example, you can save custom compression profiles, interface layouts, keyboard shortcuts and use buil in visual themes, like Office 2003, Windows XP or Visual Studio 2005.










While using this program, I had no errors, and everything went smoothly. Anyway, I still have 60 days available to find errors and share them with you...

The Good

Squeez has excellent archive formats support, is highly customizable, reliable and easy to use. The 60 days trial without any limitation is a real gift.

The Bad

While Squeez can be used to send an archive through email, it can't help you burn them to CD/DVD discs or upload them to a FTP server yet. Despite all its features and excellent interface, I still consider this program to be quite expensive...

Conclusion

At first encounter, things look really good. For me, paying almost 40$ for an archiver is too much, but since the trial period is so long, I have enough time to change my mind... just as you do, so start by clicking the download link below!

Developer: Sven Ritter
Price: 37$
Trial Link: Download