CNET Editors' review
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.
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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All versions:
4.2 starsout of 1,927 votes
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Current version:
4.4 starsout of 62 votes
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My rating:
Write review
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"1 time used. >.>"
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros
But it was good!
I got a file that was .rar
My friend recommended this.
And I understanded how to use it with ease and it didnt screw up the files.
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"Also handles .tar.gz, but imperfect for web downloads"
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros
The advertising here doesn't mention it, but WinRAR also handles .tar.gz and .tgz files (very common for Linux/Unix/Mac OSX), which is nice.
Cons
I let it run as my default handler, which means that when I click on a .tar.gz file online the browser puts the archive file in a temporary location and WinRAR opens right up to handle it. Which is good. Unfortunately, at that point (after inspecting the archive) there appears to =no way= to simply save a copy of the whole archive to a non-temporary location.
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"Lack of Innovation and Features in Crowded Field of Free Superstars"
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros
It works.
Cons
Its not intuitive, its icon is horrible looking, it not as integrated with other software applications as it should be. It also does have "ExtractNow" features like auto-opening the folder containing your files after extraction. Its simply boring and incomplete.
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"Good compression ratio and easy to use."
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
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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"Far more powerful than WinZIP"
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros
Many more features, and far more usable, than WinZip: better menus, hierarchical file browser, background archiving, queued archiving, split archives into chunks or add redundancy for 'robustness', encrypt filenames to keep an archive truly secure (and far stronger encryption - typical ZIPs can be broken in seconds). WinRAR is the first essential program I install on any PC.
Cons
Nothing.
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"Associated With Many"
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros
All kind of Winzip job can done here plus other type of file like rar and iso. So me chosed this over winzip
Cons
thumb icon designs can improve
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"easy to use"
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros
WinRAR is the simplest archiver i have every used. I just run the wizard.
Cons
No cons
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"perfect program"
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros
Everything is awesome. Interface, system resources that are used, options, features, EVERYTHING!
Cons
I have found nothing wrong with this program.
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"esta buenisimo"
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros
me gusta todo porq es muy sencillo de usar y por que es muy atractivo el producto.
Cons
nada, todo me gusto
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"nothing"
Version: WinRAR 3.6 beta 2
Pros
is very easy
Cons
nothing
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