Trident Software Pty Ltd is pleased to announce the release of PowerZip 7, a new version of its file compression software for Windows. PowerZip offers an alternative user interface and a comprehensive set of features for today's file compression & data security needs.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA February 3, 2004 -- Trident Software Pty Ltd is pleased to announce the release of PowerZip 7, a new version of its file compression software for Windows. PowerZip offers an alternative user interface and a comprehensive set of features for today's file compression & data security needs.

A Competitive Market:

The demand for file compression has been falling in recent years due to the widespread use of broadband Internet and the availability of cheap data storage. At the same time, the inclusion of Zip support in Microsoft Windows XP means that most Windows users can now create & extract Zip files without needing third-party compression software. In this environment, a file compression program must provide a clear and compelling alternative, if it is to survive in the highly competitive market. Trident Software believes that with the release of Version 7, PowerZip will continue to provide such an alternative.

Compression & Security in PowerZip 7:

Password-protection (encryption) has long been available in Zip files and was always supported by PowerZip. Unfortunately, traditional Zip encryption has proven highly insecure, as evidenced by the availability of a number of Zip "password-recovery" programs.

PowerZip 7 addresses this issue by enabling users to create Zip files protected by 128-bit and 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). AES is the cryptographic algorithm selected by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology for use by US Government organizations in protecting sensitive (unclassified) information.

PowerZip's AES encryption enables users to create password-protected Zip files in order to store confidential documents and files or send them through insecure channels, such as e-mail. PowerZip is fully compatible with AES encryption in WinZip 9 Beta 3 allowing for easy exchange of encrypted files with WinZip users.

PowerZip 7 also supports two new compression methods to provide higher levels of compression than is normally available in Zip files. As well as supporting Deflate64 (fully compatible with "enhanced deflate" in WinZip 9 Beta 3), PowerZip now also supports BWT (Burrows-Wheeler Transform) which offers even better compression.

Convenience and Simplicity:

User interface is another point differentiating PowerZip from other Zip programs. PowerZip's Compression and Extraction Wizards attempt to reconcile the often conflicting goals of providing an interface that is both convenient and potent while at the same time being simple and easy to use.

The Wizards hide much of the complexity of archives behind a clean, stylish interface that should be easy to understand even for people inexperienced with compression.

Wizards and other essential screens offer pop-up tooltips that explain the purpose of each button or control. Should more detailed information be required, comprehensive online help file is also included.

In order to be convenient for everyday use, PowerZip's Wizards are short with only a small number of steps. Users can switch off some steps (such as the Introduction step) if they are not needed and can skip others to accept the default options.

PowerZip also adds itself to the Windows Explorer right-click menu, enabling users to zip, unzip and encrypt files directly from Windows Explorer / My Computer.

Interoperability with Unix Made Easy:

With growing popularity of Linux and other Unix variants as desktop and server platforms, many users will appreciate PowerZip's built-in support for Unix archive formats. As well as being able to extract Tar, Gzip, Z and Bzip2 archives (common under Unix), PowerZip 7 can also create .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 archives - a feature that is lacking in most other compression programs. This is useful when transferring files from a Windows system to a Unix machine. PowerZip creates a .tar.gz (or .tar.bz2) file in one step, eliminating the need to apply Tar and Gzip/Bzip separately.