UltraCompare is intended to help you compare files and folders without much effort. Besides, this application lets you preview and merge their contents. Its easy-to-use interface is composed of a series of side-by-side panels and allows browsing through the differences detected. Moreover, it can also be used from the command line or through a secondary click within Windows File Manager.
This utility allows various ways to perform a comparison. Some of the operations it supports include line-by-line, smart binary and 3-way comparisons as well as synchronization and merging of contents. Fortunately, comparisons can be fitted to your specific needs by telling the program to ignore given differences and use special filters.
It is a good thing that the application can interpret Word, Excel and PDF files, some of the most widely used formats. This way, it makes it quite easy to detect any changes made to the original version. One of its best advantages the availability of a three-way compare/merge mode, which lets you compare two documents to a source. Moreover, the utility can detect duplicate files by comparing not only their metadata but their binary contents as well. I am also glad to say that this tool also allows comparing the contents of not only local folders but also network and FTP locations.
One thing I did not like about this application is that, although there are versions for most major languages, they must be download them separately and it is not possible to change the interface language after it has been installed.
In general, I was quite pleased with UltraCompare. The program is both easy-to-use and powerful. The product is shareware and can be tried at no cost. However, if comparing files and folders is for you just a casual operation, you might not be willing to spend almost 50 bucks on it. In such case, it is good to know that there are some free alternatives out there.
v17.00.20 [Apr 1, 2017]
Save result report in HTML format
File » Save result report » Save HTML result
Saves current view of compare as an HTML file
Available for all modes (text, binary, folder, table)
Header includes compare settings, file information, ignore options, etc.
Toggle header in Settings » Backup & Save
Optionally show spaces / tabs
Respects "View" setting (all / just differences / matching)
Override default styling and colors by saving custom CSS in %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UltraCompare\report\
Improved / expanded ignore options for text mode
Ignore differences in comments, strings, etc., with new "Ignore everything between" rule
Use "$" to represent end-of-line for "Ignore everything between" rule
Set an unlimited number of "Ignore lines containing / starting / ending with" rules
New "Ignore options" tab in session properties
Set default ignore rules in Settings » Ignore Options » Text
Configure line matching algorithm for text compare
New "Logical line matching" option in text mode session properties
If checked, set how many lines UltraCompare scans to "pair" similar lines and find matching blocks
Setting a higher value results in more accurate compare results (but may also use more memory and time)
Disabling can improve text compare performance
If unchecked, UltraCompare will match up lines 1-to-1
Other minor improvements and fixes
Share images, video and music between your Android and Windows devices
