- Quick specs
- Price: Free to try (40-day trial, some features disabled) $29.00 to buy (Buy it now)
- Operating system: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/NT
- Date added: December 11, 2006
- Total Downloads: 96,145,879
- Downloads last week: 388,617
- Product Ranking: #1 in File Compression
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A newer version of WinRAR is available.
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 1586 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff 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 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. Version 3.62 is a security update.
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User reviews of WinRAR 3.62
- All versions: 4.2 starsout of 1586 votes
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- 4 stars
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- 1 stars
- Current version: 4.3 starsout of 177 votes
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- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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4 stars
7 out of 8 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.62
"Its good, but not free"
Pros: The interface is clean, and the features are effective. It handles a lot of compression formats and is the original and defacto RAR creator/reader. The overall quality of the software along with the consistency is undeniable.
Cons: The interface is minimalistic and not too pretty. Plus why would I pay (or tolerate a nag screen) when I could get the functionality through a lot of good free compression tools like IZArc and QuickZip.
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4 stars
12 out of 16 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.62
"essential to your pc."
Pros: one of the few best file compression software you can possibly get. zip or archive most type of files to more than a dozen type of file several times smaller than the orginal size, unzip(extract)it at ease or make it self-extracting. with advanced feature like archive repairing, testing, encryption(decryption), file converting.
Cons: most of the advanced feature are disabled in after the free trail. and the nagging screen is one of the most reason some people switched to other softwares.
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3 stars
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.62
"Difficult for new users"
Cons: Being a new user I found it difficult to use I was told I could edit files with it but couldnt work out how to find out how to get the program to display the text of the stuff I wanted to change. I am sure someone who understood how it works would have no problems.
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5 stars
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.62
"One of the best compressors"
Pros: Can handle multiple formats. Does its work fast
Cons: Haven't encountered any yet.
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5 stars
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.62
"Very Good Compression Software"
Pros: This product is a strong competitor to WinZip. It also supports its own RaR format. I've been using it for 3 years now, its stable and reliable and free.
Cons: User Interface is not very flash.
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5 stars
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.62
"way better than winzip"
Pros: this program is compatible with heaps more file formats than its competitors and is loads easier to use
Cons: none!
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.62
"awsome (for what its supposed to do)"
Pros: Love it no errors at all
Cons: small program
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.62
"Best one around"
Pros: I think it's the best program around to manage my archives. Archives can be much smaller in comparison to .ZIP files. The program is easy to use for anyone, loads of features available and this program is definitely worth it's money.
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.62
"Worth buying"
Pros: Honestly, this is the only zip / rar archive manager that is worth buying. It's not the best looking of managers but it's certainly the most reliable and feature rich manager out there. Also, you don't HAVE to buy it, and it will only nag you when you're finished opening an archive to buy it (unlike WinZip that makes you wait forever unless you buy the damn thing - complete rip off btw)
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: WinRAR 3.62
"Works just great, there is nothing to complain about."
Pros: It's easy to use and works without flaws. You've got a lot of options and the program has many functions. It also works with many types of different files.
Cons: Sometimes the unpacking process takes a bit of time, but that is actually your computers fault, not the programs.
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