Which Duplicate File Finder to Choose?

How To Choose The Best Duplicate File Finder?

As you have already read on our web site the Fast Duplicate File Finder can find similar files of any type. Why we provide Audio Dedupe and Visual Similarity Duplicate Image Finder then?

Fast Duplicate File Finder as any other duplicate finder compares the data of the files. The feature for finding similar files compares the data and looks for identical chunks inside two files in order to determine the percentage of similarity. This tool will easily identify similar documents (Word, Excel, TXT et.), archives (RAR, ZIP etc.) or any other type of binary file.

Audio Dedupe performs a true audio decoding and analysis and compares the actual audio content rather than the file data. This allows it to find duplicate audio files even if they are stored in completely different file formats. When the audio files are stored in different file formats it means that the binary data inside of the file can be completely different even if the audio is the same. You can easily understand that a standard duplicate finder that relies on comparing the binary data will not manage to locate duplicate audio files stored in different file formats.

Visual Similarity Duplicate Image Finder performs true image analysis and can find similar and duplicate images even if they are stored in different image formats. If the same photo is saved in two different image format its binary data stored in the files is completely different - same as for the audio files. That is why the standard duplicate finders can not identify photos stored in different image formats. Because they compare file data - not file content. Unlike a common duplicate finder, VSDIF decodes all popular image formats "looks" at the photo that they contain and compares it with the other images.

A tool that can find similar content in any format can not exist as it should be able to decode all the file formats in the world. A simple analogy would be to have a car that can run on any fuel. It should have a separate engine for every possible fuel type in the world.

Having read the above information you can understand that the three tools perform completely different tasks. As the tools are targeted toward different aims they perform their tasks much better than having a single tool that tries to cover all the tasks above.

• If you need to find similar or duplicate files in an audio collection go for Audio Dedupe.
• If you need to find similar or duplicate images go for Visual Similarity Duplicate Image Finder.
• If you want to find duplicate or similar documents (xls, doc, txt), archives, binary files, or others go for Fast Duplicate File Finder Pro.

Why don't you provide a tool that combines all the three tools in one?

There are many tools that claim to do all the tasks above, and in the end, they fail to do even one of them right. As with other products ( including non-software ), it is best to have a dedicated tool for a task as it is well tested and developed to fit certain needs. Trying to combine multiple tools in one leads to compromises, lack of features due to incompatibilities in the desired tasks, and also leads to more bugs and lousy design.

These are the reasons why we have chosen to have dedicated tools that do the job right instead of having a combined tool that achieves average results. That is why our tools are the best on the market.