WinRAR

WinRAR 4.11 in Windows 7
Developer(s)	Eugene Roshal, Alexander Roshal
Initial release	1995
Stable release	4.20 (June 14, 2012; 10 months ago (2012-06-14)[1]) [±]
Preview release	5.00 beta 3 (May 9, 2013; 3 days ago (2013-05-09)) [±]
Development status	Current
Written in	C++
Operating system	Up to and including 3.90: Windows 95, 98, Me[2] Up to and including 4.00: 2000 Current releases: XP, Vista, 7, 8 Supported via Wine: Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Linux and other x86/x86-64 POSIX OS'es
Available in	42 languages
Type	File archiver
License	Commercial, Proprietary, Shareware
Website	Primary: www.rarlab.com Secondary: www.win-rar.com

This article relies on references to primary sources. Please add references to secondary or tertiary sources. (September 2011)

WinRAR is a shareware file archiver and data compression utility developed by Eugene Roshal and distributed by Ron Dwight, first released in autumn of 1993.^[3] It is one of the few applications that is able to create RAR archives natively, because the encoding method is held to be proprietary.

Developer [edit]

The current developer is Eugene Roshal, while his brother Alexander Roshal is engaged in running the business behind the software.^[4]

Features [edit]

WinRAR supports the following features:

• Complete support for RAR (WinRAR native conversion format) and ZIP archives, and unpacking of ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, EXE, 7z, Z, and xz archives.^[5][6]
• Multithreaded compression
• The ability to create self-extracting and multi-volume (split) archives.
• Data redundancy is provided via recovery records and recovery volumes, 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.

WinRAR Unplugged, a portable version of WinRAR, was available in the past and it didn't require installation, neither it created dependencies on the host computer.

Version history [edit]

Below is a summary of notable WinRAR milestones. Version 2.00 was released on September 6, 1996.

• Since version 3.00, the new RAR3 archive format is implemented. The new compressed archives cannot be managed by old versions of WinRAR.
• Since version 3.50, WinRAR adds support for interface skins and themes and support Windows XP x64.^[7]
• Since version 3.60, WinRAR includes a multithreaded version of the compression algorithm, which improves compression speed on systems with multiple, dual-core, or Hyper-threading-enabled CPUs.
• Since version 3.70, WinRAR features support for Windows Vista.^[8]
• Since version 3.80, support for ZIP archives, which contain Unicode file names in UTF-8.^[9]
• Since version 3.90, WinRAR adds support Windows x64 natively and support Windows 7. Also it enhanced support for multithreading.^[10]
• Version 4.00 speeds up decompression by up to 30%. Windows 98, Windows Me, and Windows NT are no longer supported; the minimum Windows version required is Windows 2000.^[11]
• Since version 4.10 WinRAR removes all ZIP limitations now allowing unlimited number of files and archive size. WinRAR now also allows to create multivolume ZIP files. ZIP archives now include Unicode file names.^[12]
• Since version 4.20 Compression speed in SMP mode has been increased significantly, but this improvement was made at the expense of increased memory usage. ZIP compression now uses SMP as well. The default SMP mode cannot handle text; text compression is significantly worse unless additional switches are used. Also, Windows 2000 compatibility was removed.^[13]
• Since version 5.00 Beta 1 the new RAR5 archive format is implemented. The new compressed archives cannot be managed by old versions of WinRAR. This new format features a maximum 1GB dictionary (only in 64bit version), better multicore support, it removes multimedia, text and itanium binaries special compression algorithms.^[6]

Easter Eggs [edit]

• In "About WinRAR" Help menu clicking on the WinRAR logo makes the ocean surf and waves move. Mouse clicking with Shift pressed on the logo you causes the appearance of a sailboat above the "R" button which is sailing around in the water.
• In the same dialog pressing the book icon causes it to jump like a ball until it rests, and with each bounce, the Windows' exclamation sound can be heard.
• You can add colored comments to WinRAR archives.^[14]

See also [edit]

• Comparison of file archivers

References [edit]

Further reading [edit]

• Data Compression. 2007. doi:10.1007/978-1-84628-603-2. ISBN 978-1-84628-602-5.  edit
• Fellows, G. (2010). "WinRAR temporary folder artefacts". Digital Investigation 7: 9–8. doi:10.1016/j.diin.2009.12.001.  edit
• Yeo, G. S. -W.; Phan, R. C. -W. (2006). "On the security of the WinRAR encryption feature". International Journal of Information Security 5 (2): 115. doi:10.1007/s10207-006-0086-3.  edit
• Metz, Cade (2004-11-16). "File Compression Beyond ZIP". PC Magazine 23 (20): p52–52. ISSN 08888507. 
• Qin, J. C.; Bai, Z. Y. (2011). "Design of new format for mass data compression". The Journal of China Universities of Posts and Telecommunications 18: 121. doi:10.1016/S1005-8885(10)60037-4.  edit
• Spanbauer, Scott (December 2000). "Forget Napster-Usenet Is Where the Files Are". PC World 18 (12): p254. ISSN 07378939. 
• Allen, Danny (February 2007). "Compression Apps Do More Than Shrink Files". PC World 25 (2): p64–64. ISSN 07378939. 
• Sanjuàs-Cuxart, J.; Barlet-Ros, P.; Solé-Pareta, J. (2011). "Measurement Based Analysis of One-Click File Hosting Services". Journal of Network and Systems Management 20 (2): 276. doi:10.1007/s10922-011-9202-4.  edit
• Jovanova, B.; Preda, M.; Preteux, F. O. (2009). "MPEG-4 Part 25: A graphics compression framework for XML-based scene graph formats". Signal Processing: Image Communication 24: 101. doi:10.1016/j.image.2008.10.011.  edit
• Barr, K. C.; Asanović, K. (2006). "Energy-aware lossless data compression". ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 24 (3): 250. doi:10.1145/1151690.1151692.  edit

External links [edit]

• WinRAR website
• RARLAB main website
• List of WinRAR versions