WinRAR (a.k.a. RAR) is a shareware file archiver and data compression utility developed by Eugene Roshal. It is one of the few applications that is able to create RAR archives natively, as the encoding method is held to be proprietary.

Developer

The current developer is Eugene Roshal, while his brother Alexander Roshal is engaged in business of the software.

Features

WinRAR supports the following features:

• Complete support for RAR and ZIP archives, and unpacking of ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7z and Z archives. Future versions of WinRAR are planned to include 7z creation.^[1]
• The ability to create self-extracting and multi-volume (split) archives.
• Data redundancy is provided via recovery records and recovery volumes, even allowing reconstruction of damaged archives.
• Support for advanced NTFS file system options and Unicode in file names.
• Optional archive encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a 128-bit key.

Version history

Below is a summary of version information.

• Since version 2.9, the new RAR3 archive format is implemented. The new compressed archives cannot be managed by old versions of WinRAR.
• Since version 3.50 beta 1, WinRAR adds support for interface skins and themes.
• Since version 3.50, WinRAR supports Windows XP x64.
• Since version 3.60 beta 1, WinRAR includes a multithreaded version of the compression algorithm, which improves compression speed on systems with multiple, dual-core or hyperthreading-enabled CPUs.
• Since version 3.70 beta, WinRAR features support for Windows Vista. ^[2]
• Version 3.70 (May 30, 2007)
• Version 3.71 (September 24, 2007)
• Version 3.80 beta 1 (May 30, 2008)
• Version 3.80 beta 2 (June 16, 2008)
• Version 3.80 beta 3 (July 10, 2008)
• Version 3.80 beta 4 (August 2, 2008)
• Since version 3.80 beta 5 (August 29, 2008), WinRAR displays the total progress bar when extracting TAR archives.

Easter eggs

WinRAR features a number of easter eggs. They include:

• When using version 3.20 or above, clicking on the archive 'book' on the left side of the "About WinRAR" dialog will cause it to fall and bounce, complete with sound effects.
• Click on the title picture "WinRAR" in the "About WinRAR" dialog to animate the beach background, click again to stop it.

WinRAR Unplugged

WinRAR Unplugged is a portable version of WinRAR that can be easily carried on a flash drive.

See also

• Comparison of file archivers

References

External links

• RARlab WinRAR website (win-rar.com)
• RARlab main website (rarlab.com)
• WinRAR older versions - All of the old versions from version 1.54 to the latest one
• A comprehensive list of versions

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