# Why do people use WinRAR? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 26, 2005, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229 "2005-04-26T19:52:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/21 "2005-04-27T15:15:08Z")
Maybe this has been addressed by newer versions of WinZip, but the first reason I installed WinRAR was that it could be used to unzip large files that WinZip couldn’t. I sometimes have large amounts of data 1Gig + that need to be unzipped. WinZip has a size limitation that WinRAR does not. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/22 "2005-04-27T15:35:45Z")
> [@Flander](#): > > I don’t think I’ll be archiving anything that large. The only files of that size I work with would be some sort of audio format (mostly .wav). If I want to archive that stuff, VBR Mp3 or Ogg or any of a million other formats will do just fine. But RAR will be useful if you ever need to e-mail a 60 MB .wav file, and your recipient can only accept 10 MB attachments. Just use RAR to compress and split it into 10MB files. You can even add redundancy and error checking, so if some of the files get corrupted or lost, you can still reconstruct the original file. I’m sure it’s possible to do the same with other tools, but WinRAR is probably the most widely used tool for this purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/23 "2005-04-27T16:33:13Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > This I know nothing about. Compression-meaning WinRAR files are compressed further, making them somewhat smaller. I only use it for Sim stuff, and use the XP program most of the time. I do have a few complaints-you can’t just unzip one or two items, but all of them at the same time-so I have to copy to with certain files if one item goes to one folder and the other item to another. Or that you have to always cut and paste the location of the folder you want it to zip to. Other than that, I really don’t have that much of a problem with it. ---
**Author:** ![Flander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Flander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flander)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/24 "2005-04-27T17:57:27Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > But RAR will be useful if you ever need to e-mail a 60 MB .wav file, and your recipient can only accept 10 MB attachments. Just use RAR to compress and split it into 10MB files. You can even add redundancy and error checking, so if some of the files get corrupted or lost, you can still reconstruct the original file. > > I’m sure it’s possible to do the same with other tools, but WinRAR is probably the most widely used tool for this purpose. Cool, I’ll keep that in mind. This is a very helpful topic. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/25 "2005-04-27T18:05:52Z")
I should open a thread in the Pit chastizing you people who use WinZip for FREE and gripe that it asks you to buy a license after a period of time. It’s one of the few pieces of “free” software I ever had any use for, so I paid for a license. A licensed copy has more functionality than the free version, but off the top of my head I can’t remember what (I don’t have it at work, only at home). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/26 "2005-04-27T18:11:48Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > A licensed copy has more functionality than the free version, but off the top of my head I can’t remember what (I don’t have it at work, only at home). As far as I recall, the added functionality is that it stops bugging you to cough up some dough. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/27 "2005-04-27T18:23:00Z")
I WinZip will also quit appending the activities of each session to its log file if you ask it. The trial version, although it appears to permit you to not log your activities, does it anyway. The log file can get pretty big after a while. And I think it’s forced into the root directory, too. ---
**Author:** ![Jake4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@Jake4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake4)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/28 "2005-04-27T21:58:15Z")
For those up top who seem to have missed the point some people are trying to make, namely, that 7-Zip is both a better compression program and compression format, here is a link to the home page: [http://www.7-zip.org/](http://www.7-zip.org/) And here is a link to the newest stable windows version (it’s a self-extracting archive, just run it): [http://www.7-zip.org/dl/7z313.exe](http://www.7-zip.org/dl/7z313.exe) The high points of 7-zip are: # High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression (makes compressed files half as small as zip) # 7-Zip is free software distributed under the GNU LGPL # Supported formats: 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB # For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/29 "2005-04-27T22:46:00Z")
No, 7 zip files are not 1/2 the size of zip files except in some very carefully rigged benchmark tests designed for that purpose. There are theoretical limits to hom much you can compress a file and zip is reasonably close to hitting that limit for most common file types. I use winrar just for the context menus. I never actually open the winrar program itself. but there is a certain snootyness about RAR, REAL men use RAR and only those “not in the know” would ever use something as common as zip. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/30 "2005-04-27T22:52:44Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > As far as I recall, the added functionality is that it stops bugging you to cough up some dough. Since this is GQ, I would like to point out the fact that WinZip is **NOT** free. Buying a license for it is **not** optional. The splash screen of the program and the documentation that accompany it state quite clearly that it is **not** free software. To continue to use it beyond the evaluation period without buying a license is, in fact, illegal. Like it, hate it, justify it, rationalize it, do whatever you want, but the fact remains that if you use WinZip – or WinRAR for that matter – beyond the evaluation period without buying a license, you are violating copyright law. ---
**Author:** ![mittu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@mittu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mittu)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/31 "2005-04-27T22:59:56Z")
Am I the only human being alive that uses WinAce? I tend to download archives far more often than I create them so i’m not sure if winace provides all the functionality of WinRAR for creating archives but certainly for unpacking archives WinAce is the mutts nuts as far as I can tell. Can anyone tell me why WinAce hasn’t been mentioned as a good utility to use, just out of curiosity to see if I might be better off switching. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/32 "2005-04-27T23:09:15Z")
> [@Roadfood](#): > > To continue to use it beyond the evaluation period without buying a license is, in fact, illegal. I hate to say it, but…cite? And which jurisdiction is this working within? What examples can you give of cases where this has been upheld? ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/33 "2005-04-27T23:45:13Z")
> [@Domokun](#): > > It’s got really nice batch features, like opening a whole series of zip files at once either into their own folders or into a big ol’ single folder. Great if you download a load of zip files at once. Also it can repair broken or incomplete zip/rar files to extract whatever you downloaded successfully. Very cool utility. Is this WinRAR you’re referring to here? Because I was going to post a similar question. I have a whole bunch of RAR files that I want to extract to one directory. But I can’t find the “unpack every archive to specified folder” command. It’s not a spanned archive. So currently I’m opening the RAR files one at a time and manually pointing them to the folder I want them extracted to. It’s tedious and I haven’t had the energy to manually repeat the process 60 times. (for the mods, just an FYI… I’m not referring to any kind of pirated game or software here… the RAR files in question are image archives in the format of folder1, folder2, etc. I want to keep this continuity of folders but extract all the files at once, if possible.) ---
**Author:** ![Flander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Flander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flander)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/34 "2005-04-27T23:55:11Z")
**DWMarch** , just ctrl select the files you want to extract, right-click and select “Extract to…” and choose the destination folder. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2005, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/35 "2005-04-28T01:19:18Z")
I suppose 'cause it works good. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2005, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/36 "2005-04-28T01:45:30Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > However, ZIP only encrypts the content of the file, leaving the name and size of the file in the clear. WinRAR can encrypt those details too. This is an excellent point because the uncompressed file names are what crackers use to defeat ZIP security. Another downside of the ZIP format is that an archive is limited to 64k files. RAR does not have this limit. Finally, for an interesting but sad story, look up the biography of the creator of PKZip. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2005, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/37 "2005-04-28T02:17:26Z")
> [@Jake4](#): > > For those up top who seem to have missed the point some people are trying to make, namely, that 7-Zip is both a better compression program and compression format… **Jake** Try to keep your fonts normal size. Big fonts _really_ get obnoxious. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2005, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/38 "2005-04-28T04:00:31Z")
> [@Roadfood](#): > > Since this is GQ, I would like to point out the fact that WinZip is **NOT** free. Buying a license for it is **not** optional. The splash screen of the program and the documentation that accompany it state quite clearly that it is **not** free software. To continue to use it beyond the evaluation period without buying a license is, in fact, illegal. > > Like it, hate it, justify it, rationalize it, do whatever you want, but the fact remains that if you use WinZip – or WinRAR for that matter – beyond the evaluation period without buying a license, you are violating copyright law. Well gee, they sure made it hard to violate copyright didn’t they? I don’t have Winzip installed but, as I understood, the only limitation of going over the trial was that a nag screen would appear. It was still perfectly legal to use as long as you clicked the “No thanks” button every time you used it. ---
**Author:** ![Gozu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gozu/32/6615_2.png) [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2005, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/39 "2005-04-28T05:12:01Z")
> [@tiltypig](#): > > This is why I’ve always used it. For example, the recommended method for e-submitting an Xbox game to Microsoft is to split the entire (~4GB?) disk image file into 200MB chunks using WinRar. That way, if part of the file is corrupted during file transfer, you can just re-upload or re-download 200MB of data to fix it, rather than 4GB. You know, that’s really funny. That’s how xbox games isos(among other things) are spread in pirate networks. Only they use 50 Mb chunks. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2005, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229/40 "2005-04-28T06:24:14Z")
> [@Tentacle Monster](#): > > RAR doesn’t have anything to do with TAR. TAR stands for “Tape ARchive” and has been used on Unix systems ever since, well, people have been backing up data on tape. And TAR isn’t even really a compressed file format, although the tar program can handle compressing/decompressing .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 files. > > RAR, according to Wikipedia, originated on DOS. Technically speaking, tar can’t handle compression at all on its own. It will, however, open up a connection to a program that can. Without getting too technical, tar punts the job of compression and decompression to another program you’re likely to have on your machine, but it’s capable of doing this transparently. Unix doesn’t have a native equivalent to zip or rar because Unix developers have always considered archival and compression two separate jobs to be handled by separate programs. These days, of course, zip (at least) has made its way to Linux, and various Mac-specific tools are in MacOS X. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-winrar/301229.md?page=3)