ZIP Key 6.5

• License:

  Free to try; $45.00 to buy

• Editor's Rating:

  4.0 stars

• Average User Rating:

  2.0 stars (out of 2 votes) Rate it!

• Downloads:

  47,639

• Operating Systems:

  Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 98

• Additional Requirements:

  Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP

• Limitations:

  Partial passwords recovered

• Date Added:

  July 26, 2004

• Previous Versions:

  Select a version ZIP Key 5.7

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Publisher's description of ZIP Key

From Passware:

ZIP Key recovers passwords for ZIP archives created with WinZip, PKZIP, or any other ZIP-compatible software. Forgetting a password for an archive created a long time ago is a common annoyance. ZIP Key helps you get your data back. Brute Force, Xieve, Known Plaintext, or Dictionary attacks are used to recover the password. The Brute Force attack is fast, with up to 3,500,000 passwords per second on an average PII system. With a 95 percent recovery rate for English words, the Xieve search yields up to 3,000,000,000 passwords per minute. If at least one file is available unencrypted, a Known Plaintext attack decrypts the whole archive for you, regardless of the password length. A Dictionary attack supports mistypes and additional user dictionaries. SureZip Recovery decrypts most WinZip archives in less than an hour, regardless of the password used to protect it.

Version 6.5 supports advanced AES Encryption for ZIP archives.

See more CNET content tagged:

WinZip,

archive,

attack,

password

Editor's review of ZIP Key

• 4.0 stars

• "ZIP Key"

• Reviewed by: CNET Staff
• Version reviewed: ZIP Key 6.5

If you use password-protected ZIP files to archive your work, you might want to download something like ZIP Key. The utility uses a number of techniques to recover your ZIP password. Finding a password may take a long time, and you can set the program so ZIP Key works in the background, without slowing your system. You also can stop recovery and resume it from that point later. ZIP Key performed well in our tests, finding the word Queen in less than a second. The Dictionary method checks 800,000 words per second, according to the counter. If you have an unencrypted version of one of the files in an archive, you can try the Known Plaintext attack. You can speed up Brute Force attacks by specifying possible characters. Xieve optimization also boosts this type of attack dramatically by skipping nonsense combinations of characters (finding the password "flagged" in 11 seconds). The manual doesn't explain many of the program capabilities, however. ZIP Key recovers passwords, especially if you vaguely remember them, which ZIP users may find invaluable in a pinch.

User reviews

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  This software version | All versions

• 1 stars

  Version: ZIP Key 6.5

  "Program so outdated, couldn't use "as told by mfr!""

  by unhappycamper1888 on January 15, 2007

  Pros: NONE

  Cons: No free password help here! After downloading product, a message came up saying the product was so out dated that it couldn't be used. Prompted to update, once downloaded I was only given a "demo" of how password recovery tool would work after I bought it!

  Classic bait and switch!

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• 5 stars

  Version: ZIP Key 6.5

  "Good pass cracker"

  on December 30, 2004

  Summary: It's a nice cheap zip pass cracker. In my opinion there ARE better but for this price and just to use it for .zip files is perfect.

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