- 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: June 10, 2009
- Total Downloads: 80,239,399
- Downloads last week: 343,185
- 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 3.90 beta 3 has displays only one password prompt when unpacking 7z archive with encrypted file names and further improvements in shell extension performance. Now WinRAR context menu must be more responsive when working with thousands of selected files.
What's new in this version:
Version 3.90 beta 3 has displays only one password prompt when unpacking 7z archive with encrypted file names and further improvements in shell extension performance. Now WinRAR context menu must be more responsive when working with thousands of selected files.More popular File Compression downloads
- 388,870 downloads 1. WinRAR (32-bit)
- 126,737 downloads 2. WinZip
- 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 3
- Average user rating: 4.1 stars out of 1365 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 6 user reviewsSee all 6 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
Version: WinRAR 3.90 beta 3
"This program Gave me a bad virus!"
Pros: Good for Unpacking Alot of file format's like .Zip .Rar and .Iso
Doesn't take up much Hard drive spaceCons: It Gave me a virus!
It cost's moneySummary: Not bad software for destroying your computer!!!!!!!
Just get 7ZIP! -
Version: WinRAR 3.90 beta 3
Pros: easier to use, many options
Cons: nothing particular
Summary: i like the fact that we can split files no matter how big it was, easier to upload online
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Version: WinRAR 3.90 beta 3
"I can extract many programs(eg. ZIP)."
Pros: It can extract program like WinZIP and it is very fast. Just 1 or 2 seconds, it complete extraction.
Cons: There is nothing that I dont like about this product.
Summary:
It can extract many files at once. This is fast and good. Excellent ! 100/100
Updated on Jun 25, 2009 -
Version: WinRAR 3.90 beta 3
Pros: works great
Cons: nothing really
Summary: it works great! it gets sims 2 custom content into the game! :) it just works great, u should totally download it! xD
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Version: WinRAR 3.90 beta 3
"Necessary for just about anyone"
Pros: Works like it always has. Been using WinRAR ever since I bought my first computer.
Cons: Nada. Zip.
Summary: Program is so easy to use a child can do it. Automatically opens when you need to open a rared or zipped file. Can navigate easily inside program. Remembers all the locations you extracted to.
- See all 6 user reviews Write review
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