WinRAR

WinRAR

WinRAR 4.11 in Windows 7
Developer(s) Eugene Roshal (developer),
Alexander Roshal (distributor)[1]
Initial release 22 April 1995 (1995-04-22)
Stable release 5.31 (February 4, 2016 (2016-02-04)[2]) [±]
Operating system Windows XP and later
Platform IA-32, x64
Size ~2 MB
Available in 41 languages[3]
Type File archiver
License Trialware
Website rarlab.com

WinRAR is a trialware file archiver and compressor utility for Windows. It can create archives in RAR or ZIP file formats,[4] and unpack numerous archive file formats. There is an Android app called "RAR for Android",[5] and command-line versions called "RAR" and "UNRAR" (widely released since autumn of 1993),[6] available for Mac OS X,[3] Linux, FreeBSD, Windows console mode, and MS-DOS.

Overview

WinRAR and the RAR file format have evolved over time. Support for the archive format RAR5, using the same RAR file extension as earlier versions, was added in v5;[7] files in the older RAR file format are now referred to as RAR4. WinRAR versions before 5.0 do not support RAR5 archives.[8]

The RAR5 file format added some features, but removed comments for each file (though archive comment still remains), authenticity verification, and specialized compression algorithms for text and multimedia files. RAR5 also changed the file name for split volumes from "archivename.rNN" to "archivename.partNN.rar".[8]

The RAR5 file format increased the maximum dictionary size to 1 GiB; 11 different compression directory sizes from 1 MiB to 1 GiB are available, with the default in version 5 increased from 4 MiB to 32 MiB, typically improving compression ratio. AES encryption, when used, was increased from 128- to 256-bit. Maximum path length for files in RAR and ZIP archives is increased to 2048 characters.[8]

Options added in v5 include 256-bit BLAKE2 file-hashing algorithm instead of default 32-bit CRC32, duplicate file detection, NTFS hard and symbolic links, Quick Open record to allow large archives to be opened faster.[8]

Features

When creating RAR archives:

License

The software is distributed as "try before you buy"; it may be used without charge for 40 days.[14]

Although archiving with the RAR format is proprietary, RarLab supplies as copyrighted freeware the source code of the UnRAR unpacker, with a license allowing it to be used in any software, thus enabling others to produce software capable of unpacking, but not creating, RAR archives.[15]

Security

Self-extracting archives created with versions before 5.31 (including the executable installer of WinRAR itself) are vulnerable to DLL hijacking: They may load and use DLLs named UXTheme.dll, RichEd32.dll and RichEd20.dll if they are in the same folder as the executable file.[16][17]

History

Versions

Operating systems support

More recent versions do not support many older operating systems. Versions supporting older operating systems are still available, but not maintained:

Easter eggs

See also

References

  1. (Russia, Chelyabinsk)WinRAR 3.40 release notes by Eugene Roshal (Russian)
  2. "Latest changes in WinRAR".
  3. 1 2 RAR download page
  4. Manuel Masiero (18 March 2013)"Compression Performance: 7-Zip, MagicRAR, WinRAR, WinZip" Tom's Hardware. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
  5. RAR for Android; RARsoft.
  6. 1 2 Voloshin, Kirill (2011-03-10). Интервью по переписке [Interview by correspondence] (in Russian). Retrieved 2014-10-27.
  7. Martin Brinkmann (29 April 2013)"WinRAR 5.0 introduces the new RAR 5 format. What you need to know" Ghacks. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 "Latest changes in WinRAR (release notes for all versions) [up to Version 5.20 beta 2]". Rarlab.com. Retrieved 2014-10-27.
  9. "Best Archive Tool - DonationCoder.com". DonationCoder.com. 2005-09-05. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
  10. "WinRAR 5 Final Released" Techno360.in. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
  11. Jaymar Cabebe (15 June 2012)"WinRAR (32-bit). CNET Editors' Review" CNET. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
  12. Jaymar Cabebe (15 June 2012)"WinRAR (64-bit). CNET Editors' Review" CNET. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
  13. WinRAR Help - GUI SFX modules: setup commands
  14. RAR and WinRAR END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT (EULA), retrieved 2014-01-04
  15. "Downloads, UnRAR for various platforms, and source. License says "The source code of UnRAR utility is freeware"
  16. "WinRAR - What's new in the latest version". rarlab.com. RarLab. Retrieved 20 February 2016.
  17. Kanthak, Stefan (7 February 2016). "Executable installers are vulnerable^WEVIL (case 25): WinRAR's installer and self-extractors allow arbitrary (remote) code execution and escalation of privilege". SecLists.org.
  18. "WinRAR download and support. WinRAR is a powerful Windows tool to compress and decompress zip, rar and many other formats: Knowledge Base". Win-rar.com. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
  19. "WinRAR download and support. WinRAR is a powerful Windows tool to compress and decompress zip, rar and many other formats: WinRAR 3.70 beta 1 Released". Win-rar.com. 2007-01-10. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
  20. "WinRAR archiver, a powerful tool to process RAR and ZIP files". Rarlab.com. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
  21. 1 2 WinRAR Release History; RARsoft.
  22. List of RAR software, archived 6 November 2011
  23. 1 2 FreeDOS general questions.
  24. Roshan Karkera (5 January 2013)"Hidden Easter Egg in WinRAR Application" Techie inspire. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
  25. RAR1_51.EXE has 'packed color comments' visible in WinRAR.

Further reading

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, April 23, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.