FireFly

Zipping files is a great way to compress them and make them easier to transport, but the actual zipping process can sometimes be a pain. FireFly is a simple utility that brings drag-and-drop simplicity to the file zipping process.

There's not much to this clever little tool. It appears as a small rectangle, hovering on your screen, and its opacity can be adjusted so that it doesn't interfere with whatever else you're working on. When you come across a file you want to zip, simply drag it to the rectangle and drop it in. You can do one file at a time, or include multiple files and folders. Once you've added everything you need, simply enter an optional password and click Zip These Files. The program quickly zips the files and deposits the zipped folder in your Documents folder. We do wish that the program allowed users to specify a destination for the zipped folder, and to give the folder a custom name instead of one consisting of the date and time, but these are fairly minor complaints. The program's built-in Help file is brief but well-written. Overall, we thought that FireFly was handy and easy to use, and we think it's a great choice for users who frequently need to create ZIP files. Users will, however, need a separate utility to unzip folders; that's one thing FireFly can't do.

FireFly is free. It installs politely but leaves a folder behind upon removal. We recommend this program to all users.