FileCompare

FileCompare is a compact and portable piece of software that you can use to compare the files of two directories in binary mode, in order to verify if they are identical or not. It is simple to handle, even by less skilled users.

As installation it not a requirement, you can simply drop the executable file anywhere on the hard disk and access it immediately.

Otherwise, it is possible to move FileCompare to a removable device (like a USB flash disk) and run it on any computer seamlessly.

What's important to keep in mind is that Windows Registry is not updated with new entries, and leftover files are not kept on the hard drive after removing the program.

The interface of the application is made from a regular window with a simple layout, where you can select folders using the tree view only, since the drag-and-drop method is unsupported. You can include subdirectories, hidden files and soft links.

Once the comparison task is initialized, FileCompare shows found and matched files and their size, along with the total failed attempts to open the source or target files, plus size and data mismatches. If you want to view the specific files that were not found in the second directory, you can just extend the window to detailed mode. There are no other notable options available through this tool.

FileCompare is very low-demanding when it comes to the CPU and system memory, so it doesn't burden the computer's overall performance. It has a good response time and carries out comparison jobs rapidly. No error dialogs have been shown in our tests and the tool did not hang or crash.

Unfortunately, FileCompare comprises limited features. For example, you cannot save the detailed report to a plain text document for further scrutiny. We must also take into account that FileCompare has not been updated for a while.