Smart Compressor

This freeware program's claim that it won't impact performance as much as other tools while it compresses file didn't prove to be true in our tests. We found test computers, and the program itself, ran incredibly slowly.

Smart Compressor has a small, drab, and cluttered user interface. Its not at all intuitive, and the Help feature merely restates the publishers description. You have to manually enter the drive path that you want to compress. From there, you can enter how far back you want the program to start compressing files. For example, the program default is set to compress files modified more than 90 days ago. Below that are three check boxes. The first two give you the option of compressing or decompressing files that were modified before the specified date. It isn't clear what the specified date is, and there's no way to enter one. The third check box gives you the option of defragmenting after compressing the files. As soon as Smart Compressor went to work, there was a noticeable sluggishness on test computers. In fact, the program ran so long that we had to stop it just so we could get this review to you sometime this year.

Do yourself a favor and skip this program. Smart Compressor doesn't offer any twists for file compression, and it's claim of creating less impact on your system while running just wasn't accurate.