Compress your files into single or multi-volume archives, create self-extracting archives and protect your archived data by encrypting and password protecting it. Decompress RAR, ZIP, ARJ and other types of archive formats.
WinRAR is an archive manager which lets you create, organize and manage your
archived files. With the help of this software, you can create archive files of your data, compress or decompress your files and protect your files from damages.
You can compress your files in RAR and ZIP formats only. But when it comes to decompression, the software can unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ and TAR.GZ, BZ2 and TAR.BZ2, ACE, UUE, JAR (Java Archive), ISO (ISO9660 - CD image), 7Z, XZ, Z (Unix compress) file formats along with RAR and ZIP formats. It can save data up to 8,589 billion gigabytes in size.
For beginners, the WinRAR features wizards for better understanding through basic questions. With a user-friendly interface, you can customise the theme of the software just by downloading it from its website. The experienced users can use the command line interface to perform various tasks. You can extract, test, comment, protect, encrypt, lock, scan, convert, or benchmark your archive files.
With the help of the inbuilt viewer, you can view the contents of your archived files and can also create a compression profile for the same. With recovery options, you can even retract your damaged archives.
WinRAR is, without any doubt, the best file compression software. It offers many advanced features for both new and old users. I recommend this software to anyone who is in need of a multi-purpose file compression utility.
v5.01.1 [Aug 19, 2012]
Version 5.00
1. New RAR 5.0 archiving format. You can use "RAR 5.0" option
in archiving dialog or -ma command line switch to create
RAR 5.0 archives.
2. Changes in RAR 5.0 compression algorithm:
a) maximum compression dictionary size is increased up to 1 GB
in 64 bit WinRAR.
b) default dictionary size for RAR 5.0 is 32 MB, typically resulting
in higher compression ratio and lower speed than RAR 4.x 4 MB.
c) -md switch syntax is modified to support larger dictionary
sizes. Append 'k', 'm' and 'g' modifiers to specify the size
in kilo-, mega- and gigabytes, like -md64m for 64 MB dictionary.
If modifiers are not present, megabytes are assumed,
so -md64m is equal to -md64;
d) RAR 5.0 format includes Intel IA-32 executable and delta
compression algorithms, but RAR 4.x text, audio, true color
and Itanium algorithms are not supported.
e) RAR 5.0 decompression can utilize several CPU cores.
3. Changes in RAR 5.0 archive format:
a) file times are stored as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
instead of former local time, making file exchange among
several time zones more straightforward;
b) file names and archive comments use UTF-8 encoding.
4. RAR 5.0 recovery record is based on Reed-Solomon error correction
codes.
5. "Test" command verifies validity of RAR 5.0 recovery record.
Recovery record is tested after processing all archived files.
6. Changes in RAR 5.0 encryption algorithm:
a) encryption algorithm is changed from AES-128 to AES-256 in CBC mode.
Key derivation function is based on PBKDF2 using HMAC-SHA256;
b) special password verification value allows to detect most of
wrong passwords without necessity to unpack the entire file;
7. RAR 5.0 archives allow to utilize 256 bit length BLAKE2sp hash
( https://blake2.net ) instead of 32 bit CRC32 as a file checksum.
8. Features removed:
a) authenticity verification feature did not provide the required
level of reliability and was removed;
b) switch -en (do not add "end of archive" block) is not supported
by RAR 5.0 archives, which always have the end of archive block.
c) old style extension based arcname.rNN volume names are not
supported by RAR 5.0 archives, which use only arcname.partN.rar
volume names;
d) file comments are not supported anymore both in RAR 4.x
and RAR 5.0 archives. Console RAR 'cf' command is removed.
9. "Set password" command and "Dictionary size" option are moved to
"General" page of archiving dialog.
10. You can use "Save symbolic links as links" option on "Advanced" page
of archiving dialog to save and restore NTFS symbolic links
and reparse points as links, so their contents is not archived.
Additional changes available on the developer site.
Mall Creeps
