Do your own comparison

[iampedro]

Dear Support,

Can you add a test graph to compare your software to these competitors?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/winrar-winzip-7-zip-magicrar,3436.html#xtor=RSS-182

[wulffra]

Yeah, but also to these . . .

http://file-compression-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

and on cnet
http://download.cnet.com/windows/file-compression/?tag=mncol%3Bsort&rpp=30&sort=editorsRating+asc

Home => Windows Software => Utilities & Operating Systems =>File Compression
Sort by Editor’s rating, top 30, no PowerArchiver …?

and on
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Compression-tools/

…

[spwolf]

Softpedia 5 stars rating in their review - Cnet Editor’s choice… For Top Ten reviews, we dont have affiliate program so we cant be featured there :-).

PowerArchiver is very well reviewed, by those sites that still review software and dont try to do affiliate promotion.

Otherwise, what is the point? Do you have to have someone else tell you how good PA is or what do you want next in it? (Wishlist Forums) :-).

As to the Toms Hardware, we use 7zip engine for 7zip, and our zip engine is about as fast as WinZip, and our unrar is little bit faster than WinRar’s. I think you know all of that already? Tom’s Hardware comparison is pretty amateurish though, so I dont know how do you want us to comment on it. Once we have our own format, then thats something else, but right now we have zip, 7zip, unrar, etc, and I think you know all of that?

Let me know what do you want us to comment on specifically :-)

[spwolf]

Here is Softpedia’s PowerArchiver review with 5 stars:
http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/PowerArchiver-2011-Review-223806.shtml

Cnet’s gets lost with every new update we do and someone has to manually put the rating back on, it is pita. There were few other sites that reviewed PA in 2012, but mostly these days it is affiliate deal where they try to promote something and get money if you purchase the software.

[spwolf]

basically when it comes to PA - zip is super fast, 7zip is super strong, they both have its advantages. Using rar has some other advantages as well. So all 3 formats make sense from user stand point, just depends on what you use.

Hopefully PA format will make most sense and in the meantime, PA has awesome support for zip, 7zip, rar, and 30 more formats, most of which will be further improved in next major release coming soon, but thats business as usual, as everyone frequenting our forums knows by now :-)

[wulffra]

Personally, I think it makes sense to be compared/reviewed for a couple of reasons, like:

a. obviously it will show the strengths of PA
b. also for the users who -are- in fact already using PA
(a kind of getting a confirmation that still they made the ‘right choice’ at the time)
c. most people are checking out these kinds of reviews to see what is around/available, which programs are getting positive editor/user reviews, etc.
this often is the 1st step of trying out software, join the crowd (at least, that’s how I proceed)

but above all…
d. it may be benificial from a commercial point of view
(check the number of downloads on cnet, even if only a (very) small percentage results in buying a license)

As an end-user I donot know about this ‘affiliate program’-thing. I simply note that PA is missing and I feel a bit sorry for that because I think PA deserves to be among the other programs.

I won’t be mentioning any names here, but frankly I am using a few tools that are slowly vanishing from the scene. Similar to PA they hardly ever show up in such lists and/or are reviewed in magazines. One developer indicated that his product, though still maintained fixing possible bugs, will not develop any further: it would require further financial investments and the sales donot permit this. That tool, in my opinion one of the best I know after comparing over dozen during a couple of days, wasn’t showing up in any listing/review either…

Am subscribed to three computermagazines, but donot recall PA being reviewed over the last couple of years.

Anyway, I hope to have made my point :-)

p.s. pls donot get offended/irritated or whatever, it was a positively meant suggestion to get PA in such lists.

= btw - this is what is happening when writing a longer reply

[spwolf]

@wulffra:

Personally, I think it makes sense to be compared/reviewed for a couple of reasons, like:

review from toms hardware was reviewing different compression formats… so it makes no sense for PA to be reviewed there when it uses same engine as 7zip for 7zip, and it is about the same as WinZip with zip.

I dont think they care that our 7zip engine can pick different codecs, or that our unrar is 10% faster or that our zip can pick different engines and it has very good multithreaded performance. They are comparing formats basically, not different utilities. Plus they are doing bad job of it but thats something else.

If PA had its own unique format, then thats different. And I showed you PA getting reviewed, unfortunately software industry has a lot less media behind it these days than before, so there are a lot less magazines than before. We often give review copies for magazines, especially in Europe, so reviews show up… you can also buy PA on dvd’s in some countries. But in general, mags sell less, they review less… there are only few software sites that review software, rest are all some kind of affiliate schemes. Softpedia reviews software regularly for instance, rest of them far less.

as to some other software thats not getting enough sales, feel sorry for the guys… they probably moved on. We have plenty of customers and our sales are doing good. Last month was our best selling month in past 4 years.

Of course, if you like PA, please spread the word. We are far less known than WinZip or WinRar, but I believe we get a lot bigger percentege of people actually buying software than them because if you try PA, you will most likely love it :-). We also get a lot of business customers, large companies that purchase PowerArchiver for their complete organizations due to our security features (fips certification and such).

So spread the word, get involved in wishlist forums, and tell us what you think of our own format once we release it this year :-).

[spwolf]

and recommend PA to your company as well… thats where a lot of our business comes from. PA is only compression utility that has phone support, as well as email and web chat. We are also only one of above with security certificates that allows for US Govt to buy our software - with fips 140-2 aes certification. WinZip, WinRar or 7zip can not be used by US Govt institutions due to data protection laws.

:-)