Back up conveniently with free GFI application

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

If you haven't been backing up your data because the economy is bad and you can't afford a decent backup software, I am about to open a can of no-more-excuses on you.

GFI Software launched on Thursday a free backup and recovery software for home users. Unlike other free software, which tends to be the stripped-down of the commercial version, GFI Backup Home Edition is a full-featured application.

The application gives PC users a few ways to safeguard data, including backing it up and syncing it with another location. I tried out this wizard-driven application and the feature I liked best is the capability to back up and sync a computer's folder with an FTP location. Very few other backup solutions offer this and none are free. Of course, GFI Backup also supports backing files to local folders, network locations, and other removable media.

Most backup software, including my favorite, Acronis True Image, uses a proprietary compression standard, meaning you will need the same software to do a recovery. GFI Backup Home Edition, on the other hand, uses the popular ZIP format to store backups.

This helps make the recovery job very convenient, as the ZIP format is natively supported by Windows XP and later. The software also supports the backups with military-strength 256-bit AES strong encryption, in case you want to keep your backup secure from unauthorized computer users.

GFI Backup Home Edition is the first in GFI's "We Care" initiative, in which the company will be releasing freeware versions of some of its products over the next year to help small-business and home user customers during these troubled economic times.

The free GFI Backup Home Edition software only works with Windows and can be downloaded here.

this software looks great, I'm gonna download it right away and check it out

[Cruton]

Dong, you are becoming one of my favorite editors at CNET. A good backup program should be added to the window's starter kit over at download.com. I'm defiantly going to try this one out.

[waynecnet1]

Be great if Mr Cooley & Mr Merrit expand on this program they kinda gloss over it and they did not from what I seen offer a link to it plus Cnet did not have link to it as well I had to Google it to find out more about it. I think if you are going to talk about something like this please do a demo on it.

[rpesq]

Good app, but no similarities to TrueImage.

TrueImage is a partition mirroring program. This GFI app is nothing more than another backup program, such as Cobian Backup (free), Microsoft Synctoy (free), Syncback (free).

As those three examples show, there is no shortage of free backup programs, so GFI has not really added any value to the world by releasing this.

If GFI wanted to offer something of value, then they should offer an app that competes with Trueimage -- a real partition mirroring app, that can create a real boot cd that allows partition saving/restoring from the boot disc. There is nothing free that has these features or works as good as Trueimage. The free alternatives (such as Clonezilla) bite hard.

[darrenkay]

I did find some reviews about this software

http://gfi-backup.en.softonic.com/
http://www.itnewsblog.com/2009/05/14/freeware-gfi-backup-home-edition-review/

i hope this helps.

[stefcky]

I have been using this software for my small business for months now and I think Its really great. I do all my backups to external HDDs and they are decently fast! Recommended.