- Quick specs
- Price: Free to try (40-day trial); $29.00 to buy
- Operating system: Windows Vista, Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 98
- Date added: May 02, 2009
- Total Downloads: 76,139,462
- Downloads last week: 325,779
- 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: 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:
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 3.80 adds decompression support for AES-encrypted ZIP files, improved display information, more context-menu options, and a more secure method of deleting temporary files.
What's new in this version:
Version 3.80 adds decompression support for AES-encrypted ZIP files, improved display information, more context-menu options, and a more secure method of deleting temporary files.More popular File Compression downloads
- 388,870 downloads 1. WinRAR (32-bit)
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- 36,863 downloads 3. WinRAR (64-bit)
- 21,647 downloads 4. 7-Zip
- 14,574 downloads 5. Free RAR Extract Frog
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User reviews of WinRAR 3.90 Beta 1
- Average user rating: 4.1 stars out of 1365 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 11 user reviewsSee all 11 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
Version: WinRAR 3.90 Beta 1
"this is latest upgrade software"
Pros: this is used for .rar files
Cons: nothig it is satisfied to me
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Version: WinRAR 3.90 Beta 1
"Excellent product. Easy to use."
Pros: Excellent product. Easy to use. Use for all my data backup - compresses typically 180MB to 45 MB. Good interface & easy to learn to use.
Cons: The only thing that stops me giving it 5 stars is that it has a trial period and is thus not fully freeware, but still low-cost.
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Version: WinRAR 3.90 Beta 1
Pros: A simple and easy use very useful program i can;t change.
Cons: Nothing first .I preffered to be free.
Summary: Very easy usual very simply perhaps the most important program top.
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Version: WinRAR 3.90 Beta 1
Pros: its stability
Cons: none observed
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Version: WinRAR 3.90 Beta 1
Pros: i was able to get graphics file that i can use in my layouts.
Cons: i have not encountered anything that i can consider i don't like
Summary: even i am still a neophyte in this, i still believe it can help me a lot as a photographer
- See all 11 user reviews Write review
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