Beyond Compare is intended to compare the files you keep in specific folders, networked drives or even in the Cloud. Thus, it comes in extremely handy when you are backing up, synchronizing or merging data on various locations. The tool supports various comparison modes. Thus, you can only check file names, sizes and modified times. Moreover, it allows performing a thorough byte-to-byte comparison.
The program´s interface is very similar to that of a dual-panel file explorer, which means that it lets you open a different location on each panel to visually compare their contents, as differences are automatically highlighted. As said, it supports local and networked folders. Besides, it also allows browsing FTP sites and exploring the contents of archived files. Luckily, you can apply filters to focus exactly on specific file types. It is also good that the tool can help you preview the contents of some files and, when the built-in viewer does not support the extension, you can always configure an external viewer as well. I loved the possibility of spotting the differences in the contents of two text files. When recurrent backup tasks are involved, it is of great help that you can schedule them using the program´s scripting language.
All in all, Beyond Compare has the main advantage of letting you decide what to synchronize or not, so it reduces the chances that important data be overwritten. It has an extensive list of options that you can use, but these make the tool somewhat difficult to understand at first. The product also has a Pro version with some extra features, of which three-way merging seems to be the most advantageous as it lets you combine the changes made in two different versions of a file.
v4.3.4.24657 [Oct 10, 2019]
- NEW HOME VIEW: The new Home View adds session search and web resources. The layout is easier to manage with on-screen controls.
- 3-WAY FOLDER MERGE Pro only: Three-way merging now extends to folders. Compare independent changes against a common ancestor to quickly merge your changes with someone else's. It makes merging your customizations into a new release a snap.
- AD HOC UNIMPORTANT TEXT: It is now easier to define unimportant text in your Text Compares. Define unimportant terms directly from the Rules dialog, rather than having to edit your file formats.
- WEBDAV, AMAZON S3, SUBVERSION, DROPBOX AND ONEDRIVE SUPPORT Pro only: In addition to FTP, you can access WebDAV resources, Amazon S3 buckets, Subversion repositories, Dropbox's cloud storage, and Microsoft OneDrive directly from within Beyond Compare. Organize your remote service profiles with friendly names and folder hierarchies.
- OVERHAULED PICTURE COMPARE: Picture Compare has a new look, with automatic zoom, pixel-level details, and simplified controls. Tolerance comparison mode uses grayscale to reveal the image along with the differences. It's also faster, uses less memory, and supports additional image formats.
- OVERHAULED PREFERENCES DIALOG WITH SEARCH: The reorganized options dialog includes a search feature for finding specific settings quickly. Commands for all comparison types can be customized without first having to open a view.
- OTHER SIGNIFICANT FEATURES:
- Hex Compare supports in-line editing and wraps lines to fit the window.
- New View Patch command shows diff/patch files as a text comparison.
- HTML folder comparison reports can now embed links to file comparisons.
- Added option to align filenames with different extensions in folder compare.
- File operations can be paused in the folder compare.
- Added new text comparison algorithm choice based on Bram Cohen's Patience Diff.
- Improved appearance on high DPI (retina) displays. .
- Windows logo Windows only.
- Portable media devices such as cameras, MP3 players, and Android phones can be compared.
- 7-zip archives can be created or compared, and many other archive types have read-only support, including IMG/ISO disk images.
- Zipx archives can be compared, complete with PPMd, LZMA, and WavPack compression.
- Version Compare now compares the fixed PE header in addition to the version resource.
- Remote Windows servers can be loaded as base folders (e.g., \\server), allowing access to all of its shares.
Share images, video and music between your Android and Windows devices
