DAEMON Tools Lite

Publisher’s Description

From Disc Soft:

DAEMON Tools Lite is a virtual DVD-ROM emulator based on a SCSI miniport driver. It emulates max. 4 DVD-ROM drives and works with CD/DVD images created by many burning programs. It is great on notebooks without a physical CD-/DVD-ROM drive or to save akku power and speed up CD/DVD access. In opposite to other CD-/DVD-ROM emulators DAEMON Tools Lite doesn’t use a proprietary container format. The advantage is that you can burn the images you’re using with DAEMON Tools Lite right away or just test an image before burning it to see if it was created correctly. DAEMON Tools Lite works with most image formats. Moreover it has a special feature to make physical (burned) backups of your CD / DVD images when it is possible. It supports Alcohol120%-Images (MDS-Files) and RMPS-Media. It’s also great if you want save Power on your Notebook.

What’s new in this version: Version 4.45.4 offers support of APE image files; DT as a new virtual device is added to perform Basic Emulation; Improvement of portable installation; SPTD 1.78.

7-Zip

Publisher’s Description

From 7-Zip Software:

The main features of 7-Zip: High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression. Supported formats: Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR; Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z. For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip. Self-extracting capability for 7z format. Integration with Windows Shell. Powerful File Manager. Powerful command line version.
ITUO Editors’ review

It’s easy for Windows users to forget that WinZip isn’t the only file-compression utility in the world. Like its better-known competitors, the free 7-Zip unpacks a host of archive formats, including ZIP, TAR, GZ, and its own 7z format. Unlike WinZip, though, it can create TAR and GZ archives, which are commonly used on Unix and Linux systems.

The program’s ability to shrink files was stunning. In our tests, 7z archives were up to 40 percent smaller then their ZIP equivalents, although compression did take longer, and the highest compression settings can hog system resources. Advanced options include the ability to create solid and self-extracting archives, and to adjust the compression level and password protection. The program also has a command line module. Though the main interface is overly simple and looks like it was designed for Windows 95, it’s not hard to use and fairly self-explanatory. The context menu options, which include “testing” an archive, indicate that 7-Zip should be taken seriously.

7-Zip is fine for casual users with a bit of computer savvy, but it’s especially well-suited for developers and anyone else who moves between the Windows and Linux/Unix worlds.