A Brief History of Alsoft

When Alsoft introduced DiskExpress in 1986, it was the first and only disk optimizer for the Macintosh. It has always been the safest, most reliable, and most powerful disk optimization package available for Mac OS computers. It is the only disk optimizer that can optimize any disk, even the startup disk, at any time without having to restart from a floppy or CD. It uses advanced "Verify Reads and Writes" technology to maintain the integrity of files as they are optimized. The latest version, DiskExpress Pro, received extremely high ratings from well-respected reviewers in the Mac community. 

MasterJuggler is the most comprehensive font management utility on the market today. Originally known as Font/DA Juggler, MasterJuggler has now been rewritten in Cocoa to take advantage of the advanced features of Mac OS X. The latest version still retains its professional features, such as advanced set creation and management, font gathering, the ability to store fonts wherever a user likes, and Font Guardian technology to examine fonts. Font Guardian lets users know about corrupted fonts automatically and lets them take care of the corrupted fonts before they cause problems. It examines fonts for corruption and defects, notifies users of missing printer fonts, and notifies users of non-matching duplicate screen and printer fonts. 

PlusMaker and PlusMaximizer were the first third-party utilities for HFS Plus (also known as Mac OS Extended format). PlusMaker converts Mac OS HFS disks to the new HFS Plus format without requiring users to initialize their disks and restore from backups, while PlusMaximizer gives them the smallest allocation block size available under Mac OS 8.1 or higher when initializing new disks.

PlusOptimizer was the first disk optimizer available for Mac OS 8.1 and HFS Plus disks. It uses technology developed for DiskExpress Pro and PlusMaker to provide a fast, safe, and powerful solution for optimizing HFS Plus disks. 

DiskWarrior was a radically new approach to resolving directory repair. Instead of patching the original directory, it quickly builds a new replacement directory using data recovered from the original directory thereby recovering files and folders that were lost and that no other program could recover. It also optimizes the directory for maximum directory performance, speeding up overall disk performance.

DiskWarrior 2.0 introduced the exclusive and innovative DiskShield to provide nonstop protection for Mac disks. DiskShield makes sure that directories are both updated and error-free.

The January 2001 introduction of DiskWarrior 2.1 added several new significant features that made DiskWarrior even easier to use while adding the ability to ensure that a startup disk is both bootable and reliable. It also improved DiskWarrior's ability to rebuild Mac OS X extended disks to accommodate changes made by Apple to these disks with the release of Mac OS X.

When DiskWarrior 3.0 was released in May 2003, it brought Mac OS X native directory rebuilding to DiskWarrior. Version 3.0 also introduced a hardware monitoring component to the application, providing users a warning if a mechanical failure of their drive devices seems imminent. This notification gives users a chance to back up any data on the drive before it becomes inaccessible.

DiskWarrior 4.0 was the first universal binary release and worked on both Intel and PowerPC Macs. This version was also significantly faster than previous versions. DiskWarrior 4 included an additional suite of file and folder tests to fix problems before they cause users trouble. It also repaired invalid file permissions and identified corrupted Preference (.plist) files.

Support for 64-bit was added to DiskWarrior 5.0 as part of a complete rewrite. A new internal architecture was implemented that resulted in significant speed improvements and improved repair and recovery. It also received a complete user interface makeover and support for retina (high resolution) displays. Many new features were also added.

Click here for a chronological list of product releases.