In times when harddrives store up to 500 GByte, when broadband connections allow to quickly send multi-MByte PowerPoint presentations, when users can carry around 5 GByte of data in 1" harddrives and in times when $10 USB-sticks already provide 128 MByte of space, compression utilities face a tough future.
The new WinZip 10.0 builds on its core functionality and adds a few new features that enhance existing applications models and may add a few new ones: The software offers two new compression algorithms, PPMd and bzip2, allows splitting of zip files during compression, automatic update checking, and protection from potentially dangerous files through support of Windows XP SP2's Attachment Manager.
Compression of data backups could be one of the most important applications of packer tools and WinZip 10.0 adds a few interesting features exactly in this space. The "Job Wizard" comes with automation functionality for compression tasks that need to be repeated over time. Data can be automatically stored on local drives, CDs, DVDs, network drives or even offsite through FTP.
