- Quick specs
- Price: Free to try (40-day trial, some features disabled); $29.00 to buy (Buy it now)
- Operating system: Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 98
- Date added: April 27, 2006
- Total Downloads: 71,544,207
- Downloads last week: 316,497
- See full specifications
A newer version of WinRAR is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 1365 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff
There are plenty of solid compression utilities to choose from, but this shareware powerhouse offers the features and ease of use that might place it at the top of its 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, a recent addition to the interface, makes sifting through your directories to find files for archiving 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 compression apps. You might even be prepared to forgive the slightly slower decompression speeds and lack of integrated virus protection.
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 ACE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, and ZIP. WinRAR's advanced features are icing on the cake, with Unicode support for international formatting, embedded file comments, repair of damaged archives, archive locking, self-extracting archives, and easy encryption. Anyone seeking an all-in-one archiving solution would be remiss to not evaluate WinRAR.
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Publisher's description
From RARLAB :WinRAR is a 32-bit Windows version of RAR Archiver, an archiver and archive manager. RAR files can usually compress content by 8 percent to 15 percent more than ZIP files can. WinRAR's main features include strong general and multimedia compression, the ability to process non-RAR archive formats, ZIP compression and decompression, support for long filenames, programmable self-extracting archives (SFX), repair of damaged archives, authenticity verification, embedded file comments, and encryption. Unicode is supported in archive filenames, allowing non-English filenames to be handled painlessly. You can manipulate the parameters of many archives at once and view a volume sequence as a single archive. WinRAR can convert other archive formats to RAR and search for specified text and files in archives.
WinRAR 3.60 beta 2 adds improved Unicode support in the folder tree panel, and fixes a bug with incorrect font in the volume size list in Japanese Windows 98.
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User reviews of WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
- Average user rating: 4.1 stars out of 1365 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 51 user reviewsSee all 51 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
5 out of 6 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros: Finally im tired of WInzip, it nv update its software to unzip RAR files. RAR is the solution for me now.
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7 out of 12 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
"Good compression ratio and easy to use."
Pros: You don't have to uncheck a lot of checkboxes at install.
Because the program has multilanguage support it can convince foreign - ok, so not English :) - people to vote on changing to WinRAR. With this help, many people may understand what are the differences between the special switches, like "solid" archive.
As i see it won't obtain all the available memory - maybe not needed - but can use all the CPU time it may have.
The shell extension won't eat plenty of system resources when you right-click on a file or directory, this is a very good point. It's also very easy to use and i found no bugs, yet.
Splitting the files is very easy so you can share the files onto any sizes.
SFX creating is easy, too. There are pre-defined sizes, like cd- or dvd-rom, floppy and zip-drive size. With little time you can create small installers with password protection which can help you to share your programs between your users.
Compressing over 4GB. Winrar has very good compression ratio and after versions changed i found no bugs with - very early - earlier plan compressing. But even this is true for RAR, it's not always true for ZIP.
Converting is possible. With settings, you can save a setting to use whenever you want (fe. best compressing fot special jobs). You can also set up testing so you'll never had bad surprises with damaged backups!
NTFS file system support can come in hand, storing security settings will provide you very good infos when you have to make a backup from ashes. Because you can also set to switch off computer when compression is finished, you can create schedulded jobs with it (fe. every friday afternoon). This and storing other relevant informations makes the program very good for backup purposes.
Cons: It can be very slow. Seems 7-zip is better with it's format than winrar.
Stack overflow vulnerability in this beta 2 release at the SFX module and it's not replaced.
Digital signs?
I know that schedulding is a windows application but the program should give me an own interface for the settings (like another compression tool did...).
If i have to compare compare the programs, right now i'd suggest this for home users, but the other for companies.
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13 out of 16 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
"Crucial addition to any downloader's repetoire."
Pros: This is one of those gotta-have programs for the downloaders of the world. It handles zip and rar files like a pro and has the most features of any other program like it. In essence, it is the BIG DADDY of this type of software and not to have WinRar for a downloader is like not having MS WORD for a writer or PHOTOSHOP for a graphic artist. I just wish it was free.
Cons: I don't give 5 stars to programs that aren't free.
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4 out of 6 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros: I used to love using WInzip, but it never let you have this many options or even update it self like this does. RAR is the best solution for me now.Recommended
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4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros: This is a good program that can compress in either .rar or .zip files and can extract several different types of files. The bigger the file you are going to compress the smaller it smashes it down it. That is the rule of thumb.
Cons: none. Except for a nag screen that appears after awhile when you open the program.
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