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CNET Editors' review
WinRAR is a lightweight, flexible, and easy-to-use archiving utility that can unpack most archive formats, as well as compress to both RAR and ZIP. Free to try for 40 days ($29 for single license), WinRAR is a top dog in the compression category.
WinRAR's interface is about as simple as it gets. Start creating (or add to) an archive by dragging and dropping your files into the interface or by browsing through the Folder Tree side panel (when enabled). From there, the most common functions are laid out in the form of colorful, mostly intuitive icons along the top, which can all be customized by downloading themes from the company's Web site. You can Add files to, Extract, Test, Delete, or even Repair archives right from the main interface. Drop-down menus house the program's more advanced features, including self-extracting archives, archive locking, benchmarking, and autodeletion of temp files.
WinRAR - Compress files and unpack archives - Download Video Previews
With WinRAR, both creating and unpacking archives is blazingly fast. And according to WinRAR's developers, the most recent version of the program takes advantage of multicore processors to achieve even faster compressions rates, depending on your hardware profile. It is worth noting, however, that these speed boosts do use up a significant chunk of RAM (approximately 120 MB). Compression ratios vary depending on file type, but in general seem on par with or better than other archiving programs.
Overall, WinRAR is a winner because of its speed, simple interface, flexibility with file formats, and powerful advanced features. If you're looking for a one-stop archiving shop, look no further.
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 4.20 significantly improves compression and decompression speed; RAR general compression algorithm is optimized for better utilization of several processor cores. While some speed gain is possible even in single processor mode, best results are achieved in multi-core environment.
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All versions:
4.4 starsout of 143 votes
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Current version:
4.4 starsout of 17 votes
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My rating:
Write review
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"best rar opener"
Version: WinRAR (64-bit) 4.20
Pros
works on everything including dvd's to extract contents from iso. never fails and if it does, it is your fault. these guys know what they are doing
Cons
does not explain how long licence runs for. too east to crack open and manipulate the code inside
Summary
best 100% of the time. absolutely no incompatibility issues with xp vista win7
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"Easy to use."
Version: WinRAR (64-bit) 4.20
Pros
Easy to use and friendly.
Cons
None that I found.
Summary
Easy to use and friendly app.
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"De selected the garbage, still installed, never loaded!"
Version: WinRAR (64-bit) 4.20
Pros
NONE it is a bloated piece of junk. It will install a TON of tool bars and garbage add-on's, even if you deselect it. THEN it never loads the program, hangs. I have a Lenovo i7, Window 7 64 bit OS.... so it's not my computer.
Cons
This is NOT rocket science to compress and extract files in RAR. There are too many FREE options to deal with this garbage filled software.
Summary
Don't waste your time..... I could put up with some of this for shareware but this is NOT share ware. I have sent $100's to shareware vendors of software I like and use... These folks are trying to go for the GOLD... greedy.
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"this is best rar software"
Version: WinRAR (64-bit) 4.20
Pros
it has more options than other rar softwares :)
Cons
it can extract more than software cannot
Summary
this is spectacular
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"Takes care of all my zip programs"
Version: WinRAR (64-bit) 4.20
Pros
Easy to use. No long learning curve. Does the job quickly and very fast.
Cons
None that I know of
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"instructions do not work"
Version: WinRAR (64-bit) 4.20
Pros
free trial
Cons
Instructions did not work. Paid for 64 bit and it downloaded 32 bit. Then tells you that you should have 64bit. Instrcutional language is very obtuse and difficult to understand. Nothing is intuitive in the software design.
Summary
Instruction language is too obtuse and complicated. Grossly overated and not easy for an intermediate user.
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"Excellent general purpose archive management utility"
Version: WinRAR (64-bit) 4.20
Pros
Small signature
Fast & reliable
Shell integration
Wide variety of compression algorithms supported
Has SFX mode with customizable actions executed before or after the extraction process
SupportsCons
None noted
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"The best compression/extractor there is."
Version: WinRAR (64-bit) 4.20
Pros
There just is no comparison! This is the strongest program out there. It handles all of the different compressed files I get. None of the other programs do that.
Cons
There are no cons.
Summary
I'd rather not be without WinRar.
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"Where the world would be without WinRAR?"
Version: WinRAR (64-bit) 4.20
Pros
To what it need to do.
Cons
Can't find any.
Summary
I can't remember when I used WinRAR for the first time. WinRAR was with me since my early starts with computers. WinRAR is also one of the first software that I am installing on my PC after format.
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"Easy to use & install."
Version: WinRAR (64-bit) 4.20
Pros
All features are good.
Cons
Non so far during in use.
Summary
No words to write excellent. Works for all which I need.
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