For many of us who enjoy taking photographs, our computers quickly get full of images. If it's a family computer, other files such as music and films will all be fighting for precious memory. Blubox is a program designed to compress your files to a fraction of their normal size while still being viewable.

Blubox System requirements

• Windows 98 SP2 or later
• Pentium III or later
• 64Mb RAM or greater
• 15Mb disk space
• Product activation requires connection to the internet

Blubox is a compression and encryption software program to help you transfer more information through email faster and store more data on your drives.

Blubox claim that using the software will allow you to send emails 20x faster and store 30x more information on USB and drives.

Blubox Installation
Installing the program is done by either downloading from the Blubox website or by installing from a CD.

When installing from the CD I had to open the drive through MyComputer as it didn't launch automatically. Then, after agreeing to the terms & conditions, it was on the computer in around 30 seconds. The low RAM requirements and minimal disk space needed to install suggested it wouldn't take very long.

Launching the application triggers the registration process.

Blubox Features
The program prides itself on ease of use as clicking one button will have your images ready for sharing. Blubox then compresses the images by upto 95% without losing image quality. The system has a number of customisable settings for compression which come up when you add a new Blubox archive.

The system is split into three areas: compression type, compression level and image size. The first option has two types of compression: binary and image compression. Image compression is the standard way of compressing information, relying on the fact that the human eye is incapable of registering loss of certain amounts of data. The compression system then throws away the information it thinks won't be missed by the viewer.

The binary compression system finds identical patterns in the data and and replaces them with a single, shorter pattern while retaining a memory of the original information.

Decompression is then performed by undoing the original changes by using the information found in the memory.

The second section concentrates on the level of compression and has five options starting at lossless which is for binary compression only, low, medium, high and maximum.

The images can also be resized if the recipient isn't going to be printing them, saving even more space.

Blubox offers a security feature in the style of a 256-bit AES encryption system, similar to the one found on the Lexar Secure II flash stick I reviewed back in July 2007.

A password is all that's needed with the Blubox system and the information is protected.

Blubox claim that emails with compressed images can be sent 20x faster than an email containing images not compressed.

The email will have the archive folder attached and the system will automatically attach a link to the free viewer which the recipient needs to download and uncompress and view the images with.

One feature that Blubox allows is the viewing of images when they are compressed without the need for extraction or printing.

If you get stuck then the website is great. It has a list of the features with more detailed coverage, along with a section dedicated to getting started with the program.

This includes help guides, screen shots, tutorials and a video which, it says, will get you up and running in two minutes.

Blubox Getting started
The welcome box springs up after registration is complete and four options are presented before you. You can start a new archive, open an existing one, view the getting started guide or read some tutorials.

Opening the third window shows you a help box of what to do until you reach the point where you are currently, so it has no use at all.

The tutorials button also opens up the help box at exactly the same place, so I'm a little confused as to why two options are given on the welcome screen.

The welcome box can be suppressed by clicking the square in the bottom left corner as the only other two options are accessible from the main screen.

Choosing a new archive will open up a small separate box to add files or folders to the program for compression and encryption.

Blubox In use
Converting 140Mb of images into an archive took around four minutes using image compression at maximum compression with the image size being reduced to 800 px to allow for email constraints. The size of the file after this action was 3.61Mb which is over 32 times smaller, but just big enough for the global system to cope with in email.

This took me a few times to master as I didn't know which setting would get the compression rate below the emails maximum capacity. A box telling you the overall size of the archive with each setting would be nice, to save messing about.

I sent the email to my own inbox and had received notification after two minutes 30 seconds. The email didn't finish sending for another 30 seconds, though.

It's worth noting that you have to access your emails through the Blubox program or it won't add the link and message to your message. This part is important as it gives instructions on allowing the recipient to view the images and it also means that webmail accounts won't be able to benefit from this feature.

For the recipient, the link in the email takes them to a free download page for the viewer. Download and installation of the viewer takes around five minutes and is straight forward to use.

Blubox Verdict
I like the idea of being able to store more information on my computer than I previously could because the archives allow storage on your computer as well. It's not merely for emailing easier or secure transport.

It's a useful program and if you have loads of pictures on your computer it will free up lots of space, allowing you to store many more.

Blubox Plus points
Useful for photographers
Simplified website for extra help
Never took more than five minutes to compress
Good security

Blubox Minus points
Emails have size restraints which means messing about resizing

FEATURES

EASE OF USE

PERFORMANCE

OVERALL

Blubox costs £19.99 and is available from the Blubox website here.

 

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