It supports two new compression methods within the Zip file format (PPMd and bzip2), features the ‘WinZip Job Wizard’ – the easiest way to zip/unzip, Zip to CD or DVD (WinZip 10.0 Pro on Windows XP only), quick file selection, attachment management support, but does all of this and the 128 and 256-Bit AES Encryption really optimize WinZip? What really is improved in this new version?

Now available in two versions, Standard and Pro, WinZip 10. promises enhanced compression. What it really does, is offering a full package of utilities (quite helpful), but not so many Archive improvements.

The standard version includes:
-Predefined Data Backup Jobs.
-Create Custom.
-Automated Zip Jobs.
-Scheduling Capabilities for Running Zip Jobs.
-FTP Upload Functionality (automatically send the Zip files created by your jobs to remote FTP sites).
-Zip and Burn Directly to CD and DVD.
-Attachment Management Support (blocks the extraction and execution of dangerous file types from Zip files).
-Explorer Style View.
-Quick File Selection (select files to be seen inside an archive, on top of others).
-Automatic Update Checking.

In order to see relevant changes in WinZip’s performance, we’ve tested its compression capabilities and compared it with WinRar, Power Archiver and 7-Zip. Tests were made on a 100 MB folder containing different files.

PowerArchiver 2006, Version 9.5:
-with compress options: Ultra, 7z archive, PPMd.
-time: 3:17.
-resulted archive: 55.8 MB (without PPMd 53.9 MB).

-with compress options: Maximum, 7z archive, PPMd.
-time: 3:04.
-resulted archive: 55.7 MB (without PPMd 54 MB)

-with compress options: Maximum, zip archive, Deflate64 compression.
-time: 42 s.
-resulted archive: 59.7 MB (without Deflate64 60.1 MB)

WinRAR 3.51:
-with compress options: Maximum, rar archive.
-time: 1:31.
-resulted archive: 54.4 MB.

-with compress options: Maximum, zip archive.
-time: 24 s.
-resulted archive: 60.2 MB.

7-Zip:
-with compress options: Ultra, 7z archive, LZMA, dictionary size 32 MB, Word size 64.
-time:3:42.
-resulted archive: 51.4 MB.

-with compress options: Maximum, 7z archive, LZMA, dictionary size 8MB, Word size 64.
-time3:54.
-resulted archive: 52.2 MB.

WinZip 10.0:
-with compress options: Maximum (PPMd).
-time: 2:01.
-resulted archive: 56.8 MB.

-with compress options: Maximum (bzip2).
-time: 57 s.
-resulted archive: 59.1 MB.

-with compress options: Maximum (enhanced deflate).
-time: 38 s.
-resulted archive: 59.7 MB.

The results are conclusive: winner for the smallest archive is 7-Zip with only 51.4 MB but WinRar does a faster job and the size of the archive (54.4 MB) is close to 7-Zip.
WinZip 10.0 can be downloaded here.