14 DAY TRIAL // The official press release reads: “GFI Software has been working with Titan for some time and has made significant investments in the technology, which it has now re-launched under GFI. GFI will continue making major investments in this technology.”
Thus Titan Backup has suffered a drop in price from $39.95 to zero as recently the copyright ownership passed from Neobyte Solutions SRL to GFI Software. The fresh freebie has kept the largest part of the Romanian backup solution, save for the name, price and compatibility with the old version.
The new name is GFI Backup 2009 Home Edition and, as it suggests, it is intended for home users and only they benefit from free use. Compatibility with Titan Backup has not been maintained, meaning that the backups of Titan will not be restored by GFI. So you will have to start with GFI Backup anew with regard to the setup of the tasks and jobs as well as the scheduler. As some Titan Backup users may have guessed already, importing the settings from Titan to GFI is also restricted as there is no compatibility between the file formats of the two apps.
Alternatively, if you want to make the switch from Titan to GFI you will have to restore the files with the paid product and then back them up with the freebie. This is possible because both apps can survive on the same system without any problems. You can keep using the latest version of Titan Backup (2.5.0.117) but this release will not benefit from further development as GFI is meant as a full replacement and will be enhanced and maintained.
GFI Backup addresses beginners and advanced users alike, providing features such as 256-bit AES encryption, backup file upload to a remote location through FTP transfer, both incremental and differential backups, task scheduler, file and folder synchronization or creating a password-protected ZIP archive. For the newbies it sports a wizard-driven interface with extremely easy to follow steps and comprehensive explanations of the functions.
There is though one apparent issue that needs to be fixed by GFI in the EULA of the product. At the moment the EULA clearly states (well, if you can understand and follow the murky terminology) that the product is licensed by Windows Home Workstation, which is further explained as “machines running any of the following operating systems: Windows XP Home, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium.”
As you can see, if a home user buys Vista Ultimate or Windows XP Pro and uses it at home, he or she can't legally use GFI Backup 2009 Home Edition. However, the company will probably adjust the EULA so that any operating system is allowed as long as it is used for personal use and not commercially.
Both GFI Backup 2009 Home Edition and the latest version of Titan Backup can be downloaded from Softpedia and put to the test.
