FileOptimizer helps you reduce the size of files so that sharing and storing them become more efficient. The excellent news is that the program supports processing a very long list of about 400 file types, because the author has compiled a great selection of more than 90 third-party plugins. Luckily, there is a well-structured help file to help you find your way with ease.
The tool has a rather straightforward interface. In this regard, it is great that it supports drag-and-drop operations to import files. Likewise, since it can process file batches, it is good that you can add entire folders. Fortunately, the program can identify and list only those files which are susceptible of being shrunk. Additionally, FileOptimizer can automatically exclude duplicates. I just wished that it could integrate with Windows Explorer to allow me to add files via right-clicking, though.
Once the desired files have been imported, you can proceed to optimize them right away following the instructions given. However, the use of a right-click menu does not feel very intuitive for me. If you think the same, you can make it more explicit by unhiding the toolbar. While the files are processed, you can get continuous feedback as to the optimization plugin being used and the expected optimization percentage.
If you follow the procedure described above, the default configuration will be used. This means that additional metadata is deleted. Likewise, the original files are automatically sent to the Recycle Bin and replaced with the optimized ones, which is quite convenient in case anything goes wrong. Still, you can go to Settings and customize various optimization aspects. For instance, you can pick one of 10 optimization levels, which range from the quickest to the highest.
Similarly, you can decide to delete old files permanently and keep file attributes. Regrettably, although there are tabs for every major file extension by which you can set specific options, it is not possible to use different optimization levels for each of them.
All in all, FileOptimizer does a great job of optimizing file size. I tried it with different optimization levels and it managed to lean the files without noticeably altering their contents. Therefore, it is a great choice if you need to speed up file transfers and reduce the needs for storage space. In this respect, your websites, package distributions and multimedia contents can be made easier to transfer and download. The product is open-source, so it is free to use; yet, donations are encouraged and it asks for your consent to show ads.
v7.0 [Jan 14, 2015]
- Added FLAC compression using FLACOUT (DotDotDot).
- Added MP4 compression (.mp4 .m4a .m4b, .m4p, .m4r .m4v .acc) using mp4v2 (Francisco Eirea Bito-on).
- Added Autodesk Revit (.rvt) and Solidworks formats (.sldprt, .slddrw, .sldasm) to the OLE tool chain (maadjordan).
- Added eDrawings (easm) to the ZIP tool chain (maadjordan).- Integrated Leanify compression for GZ, SWF and ZIP formats.
- Added TAR support with Leanify.
- Updated Leanify 0.4.2 binaries with Windows XP compatibility. Thanks JayXon.
- Added DWF extension to the ZIP tool chain (maadjordan).
- Added .ksf, .wsz, .wal, .wmz, .mdz, .miz, .s3z, .xmz, .itz, .osk, .rmskin, .mmip, .msz extensions to the ZIP toolchain (Jaff).
- Added .vlt extension to the GZ toolchain (Jaff).
- Launch TruePNG before PNGOut to improve PNG compression (trlkly).
- Added OCX and VBX extensions to the DLL toolchain.
- Improved GIF compression ratio upgrading to gifsicle 1.87 (custom build).
- Better GIF compression ratio adding --crop-transparency and if metadata should be removed --no-comments --no-extensions --no-names (Vivid).
- Unpacked TruePNG.exe to avoid false positives with Symantec AVs (LayZee).
- Improved WEBP compression ratio updating to libwebp 0.4.2.
- Improved GZ, MNG, PNG, and ZIP compression ratio updating to AdvanceCOMP 1.20 beta.
- Upgraded to Ghostcript 9.15.
- Removed ImageMagick from the JPEG toolchain because it can cause quality loss (deluge).
- Brand new plugin execution, easier to mantain, and also more efficient.
- Updated APNG Optimizer to 1.3.
- Updated mozjpeg to 3.00 which improves compression ratio, and fixes Photoshop incompatibilities (Lard).
- Updated TruePNG to 0.5.0.3 (Jaff).
- Updated jpegoptim to 1.4.2 (custom built) (Jaff).
- Updated ImageMagick to 6.9.0.0.
- Updated PngOptimizer to 2.4.1.
- Added ini options bBMPCopyMetadata=false, bGIFCopyMetadata=false, bMiscCopyMetadata=false, bPCXCopyMetadata=false, bTIFFCopyMetadata=false to control copying metadata for other filetypes.
- Do not suffix shortcuts on the installed with x86 or x64, since only once will be available (trlkly).
- Added Leanify to PNG and ICO tool chains.
- Fixed reopening FileOptimizer when closed minimized from the taskbar (d4k0).
- Skipped files now have the Skipped status in the Status column instead of Pending.
- Cancel optimization is now faster.
- Remove Control Alt X accelerator in installer shortcuts (AdamDobay).
- Improved GUI drawing performance.
- Internal build number now matches subversion repository revision.
- Better performance updating to ASMLib 2.35.
- Updated to NSIS 3.0 beta 1.
- Removed Launch wording in installer shortcuts (David Mártínez).
- Slight WINE compatibility improvements (Jesus Alcaras).
- Make sure file still was not deleted before processing (A user).
- Launched plugins now do with the same process priority as FileOptimizer (A user).
- Small installer/uninstaller improvements.
- Upgraded to C Builder XE7.
- Upgraded distributions to 7-Zip 9.35.
- Source code migrated to a subversion repository at http://sourceforge.net/p/nikkhokkho/code/HEAD/tree/.
