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WinRAR is dead
Just shy of 30 years after the release of Roshal ARchiver, Microsoft obsoletes the most popular software of all time by announcing native support for several compression formats in Windows 11. Soon, you will be able to pack and unpack tar, 7-zip, rar and gz archives without installing additional software.
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- What's your favourite archive format?198 votes
- .zip33.84%
- .rar17.17%
- .7z25.76%
- .tar1.01%
- .tar.gz13.64%
- .tar.xz3.03%
- other5.56%
Comments
We'll see. Windows has a bunch of native support for things that I still use third-party for.
WinRAR is most commonly used by the same crowd that uses torrents. Others usually opt for 7zip as it supports more formats then winrar and can extract all normal archives.
libarchive has only implemented reading RAR files. Creating RAR files is still proprietary.
Great, now we won't have to pay for WinRAR license ever again!
To create .rar you still need winrar license. And of course how about .cab or .arc? So, winrar is not challenged.
Personally I use Linux, so I only have rar installed to unarchive RAR files (very rarely needed). I do not know how popular RAR archive is, but from what I notice ZIP is way more popular nowadays.
zstd much cooler. Because of speed. 7z-zstd When i need fast backup/archive - zstd only. If i need good compresion - winrar. I do not see any competitor to winrar at all. People who say about lzma and other compressors = never ever tried to check alternative options inside winrar in different tabs. Winrar - beast. But paid. But its okay.
I’m a simple man
apt install zip
zip -r ./penus
unzip penus.zip
Welcome to the 2000s, Microsoft.
Sincerely, Linux, BSD, and macOS.
Who ever did?
I never saw the need to create one. Proprietary compression algorithm from 1990s Russia...yuck. Run like the plague.
I've only ever needed unrar because there's no need to pollute the world with .rar archives when there are so many worthy and free alternatives.
so need upgrade to win11, i better use winrar
Wait - people still use Windows?
This will probably decrease worldwide malware infections by a not insignificant amount. Pretty much all those cracks and keygens are Trojans and other baddies. The paid user percentage is probably in the sub 0.1% range.
The key file can be used cross-platform, i.e. copy key file from windows, put it in /etc in linux, & you got full working rar binary. Also cross-version, because I can't remember from what version I got it from
wait, people still using RAR?
I appreciate it but I think Microsoft should have prioritzed this over pre-installing THREE different Xbox-programs (sorry, APPS) to Windows 11 and not letting me remove them all ..
I respectfully disagree. I use 7zip for windows and it does everything I need, i.e. unarchiving. Usually, when I create my own archives I have no intention in distributing, I use LZMA and create self-extracting .exe files for convenience. I don't care about 1-2 MB less, I have tons of hard disks of all kinds and sizes as well as BD-R disks. I also use 7zip for distributing stuff but then I create zip archives with various settings as appropriate.
Besides, rar format is NOT the best at compression rates:
https://peazip.github.io/maximum-compression-benchmark.html
I love being lazy.
I’ve been programming for less than a year and I don’t like binaries anymore.
I do what has to be done, I compile, I execute.
Cba with dependencies and all that.
So, no one really made .cue files from bunch of small .rar00, .rar01... ?
error: file too large
error: penus too small
.rar is still l33t.
you wanna fite? dot 7z is better you nerd.
ok
please yabs 7z!
damn you winnerd. YOu're just supporting the consolidation of archiving technologies.
Oh, that brings back memories.
If I remember the rules of the scene right releases had to be packed in archives with files either 20MB or 50000 bytes in size. Not 50MB, but 50000 bytes.
WinRAR is/was the favorite compression software for pirates.
Most of the illegal files were compressed in RAR and I never understood why.
But I'm happy to say that I worked for a company that bought the WinRAR highest license for 999 users
Windows' built-in services usually perform basic functions, which is why other software like antivirus software can still exist and be successful.
How much more basic can rar/unrar be?