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- Quick specs
- Price: Free to try (40-day trial) $29.00 to buy
- Operating system: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7
- Date added: March 14, 2010
- Total Downloads: 102,302,628
- Downloads last week: 390,556
- Product Ranking: #1 in File Compression
- See full specifications
- CNET Community
- This product is on 111 member lists. Add to my list Add to my Watch List
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 1585 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: Seth Rosenblatt on November 08, 2008
There are plenty of solid compression utilities to choose from, but this shareware powerhouse offers the features and ease of use that place it at the top of the compression category. WinRAR is easy to use, lightweight, and flexible.
An intuitive interface lets you mouse over icons to see their functions, and if you don't like their candy-coated appearance, you can always choose from several themes at the developer's site. The Folder Tree Panel makes sifting through your directories to find files easier than ever. But once you see the size savings of a RAR archive, with a compression ratio of 8 percent to 15 percent better than the ZIP format, you'll understand why so many users and developers are making the switch from other apps. With virus scans now integrated and minor interface tweaks for Vista, only the slightly slower decompression speed holds the app back.
Beyond its good looks and right-click readiness for basic compression and unzipping, WinRAR offers unpacking support for a large number of archive formats, including TAR, ACE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, and ZIP. WinRAR's advanced features are icing on the cake, with Unicode support for international formatting, embedded file comments, damaged archive repair, archive locking, self-extracting archives, and easy encryption. There's also the option to automatically delete temporary files and just-archived files. Anyone seeking an all-in-one archiving solution would be remiss to not check out WinRAR.
Watch the CNET video review of WinRAR (32-bit):
Publisher's description
From RARLAB:WinRAR is a 32-bit / 64-bit Windows version of RAR Archiver, the powerful archiver and archive manager. WinRAR's main features are very strong general and multimedia compression, solid compression, archive protection from damage, processing of ZIP and other non-RAR archives, scanning archives for viruses, programmable self-extracting archives(SFX), authenticity verification, NTFS and Unicode support, strong AES encryption, support of multivolume archives, command line and graphical interface, drag-and-drop facility, wizard interface, theme support, folder tree panel, multithread support and Windows x64 shell integration. WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack and convert CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, Z, 7-Zip archives. WinRAR is available in over 40 languages.
What's new in this version:
Version 3.93 fixes the bug in WinRAR 3.92 -xd:\path\folder switch could also exclude folders, which path does not match the path specified in the switch and only the folder name is the same as specified.More popular File Compression downloads
- 390,556 downloads 1. WinRAR (32-bit)
- 105,971 downloads 2. WinZip
- 91,542 downloads 3. WinRAR (64-bit)
- 23,126 downloads 4. 7-Zip
- 16,325 downloads 5. Free RAR Extract Frog
- See all File Compression downloads
User reviews
- All versions: 4.2 starsout of 1585 votes
- 5 stars
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- 1 stars
- Current version: 4.4 starsout of 136 votes
- 5 stars
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- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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4 stars
6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR (32-bit) 3.93
"Opens Rar files every time."
Pros: I only use it to open rar files and I haven't found one yet that it won't open.
Cons: don't have any cons as of yet.
Summary: Works great.
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5 stars
6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR (32-bit) 3.93
"very useful"
Pros: everything this program has too offer is a pro
Cons: i have had no cons so far using this program
Summary: perfect for making your own .rar file or opening a .rar file, supports many other file types aswell.
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4 stars
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR (32-bit) 3.93
"Best in the Market"
Pros: Its intuitive and easy to use interface leaves no doubt as to how to proceed, yet every advanced option is tailor-made for even professionals to use, including the availability of Command Line parameters for automation.
Cons: It's not free? Though it probably shouldn't be, considering the quality of this product.
The interface could use a revamp, but that's mere cosmetics.Summary: Rar is and has been the compression algorithm of choice for quite a few years now, and on top of that, Winrar works with virtually all compression algorithms known today, Jar, Bin, ISO, Zip, Rar, etc.
Can't go wrong with this one. -
5 stars
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR (32-bit) 3.93
"Works well, lots of formats."
Pros: U need to have this
Cons: Only a trial.
Summary: Even though I use 7Zip,this actually does more.Unpacking rar movies is sooo simple with WinRar.
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5 stars
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR (32-bit) 3.93
"Just works without any fuss or bother"
Pros: Just works without any fuss or bother
Cons: Just works without any fuss or bother
Summary: Just works without any fuss or bother
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4 stars
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR (32-bit) 3.93
"Worked great!"
Pros: It worked exacting as planned and I had not problem with it.
Cons: I really did not have any problems with the program.
Summary: I have only used it once since downloading it, so I do not have a great deal of experience with the software. It worked wonderfully the one time I used it and I had no problem with the program.
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4 stars
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR (32-bit) 3.93
"User Interface could be clearer and plainer."
Pros: It works all of the time!
Cons: I still think that the User Interface could be clearer and plainer. I often find that it is not obvious what boxes I should be ticking or fields that I should be filling in.
Summary: Far better than anything else.
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR (32-bit) 3.93
"Just works without any fuss or bother"
Pros: Just works without any fuss or bother
Cons: Just works without any fuss or bother
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR (32-bit) 3.93
"Does its work invisibly"
Pros: fast & simple
Cons: No problem
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR (32-bit) 3.93
"User Interface could be clearer and plainer"
Pros: User Interface could be clearer and plainer
Cons: User Interface could be clearer and plainer
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