Backup Program Data & Personal Settings with FBackup

We all know the importance of maintaining backups and in the past we have covered quite a few tools for backing up your important files. Fbackup is another one such tool, it has some pretty distinguishing features you should consider while choosing your ideal backup software.

You can download and install Fbackup from here. Once installed, you can create backup jobs to quickly backup the files you want.

Create a job, specify the destination you want to backup to (local, external or network), specify the directories, include or exclude files using wildcards, encrypt and password protect the backed up files and you have a backup job set up.

You can then specify if you want to run any actions before or after the backup and schedule when you want to run your backups. So far so good, it does pretty much everything you would expect of a backup program. But wait, there is more, something that sets Fbackup apart from other backup software out there.

Its the plugins. Fbackup supports plugins that help you take better backups of your program data. What is program data, you ask? As an example let’s consider Firefox, all the extensions you install, bookmarks you create and other tweaks and customizations you perform — constitute the program data for Firefox. Something that doesn’t come with the software, and something you might lose if your hard drive crashes or if you re-install the operating system.

The savvy users would suggest to take backups of the %APPDATA% directory, that would include program data for a number of your programs. However, Fbackup makes the task even easier and almost a no-brainer with the help of plugins.

All you have to do is visit the plug-ins page (it’s for Fbackup and Backup4All-another backup solution from the same developer but not free) and download the required plugin. There are plugins for a wide range of software.

You can find plugins for Firefox, iTunes, RoboForm, Pidgin, Photoshop, Picasa to mention a few. Each plugin gives you a simple way to backup your profile/settings in that program so that you can easily restore it later.

Once you get plugin on your side of the tubes, go to Tool > Plugins. You can add, remove, enable disable the plugins from in here. With the plugins added, you can now find the corresponding entry under the sources tab when setting up backup jobs. Here is an example with the Firefox backup plugin installed:

Fbackup really makes it easy to backup program data along with other important files. The interface is clean and easy for the regular user without too many options.

It would be interesting to know what backup solution you would use? Would you consider Fbackup for its plugin and ease of use? Sound off in the comments and assuage our curiosity!