Talk:WinRAR

WinRAR Jr. Foood.net image removal
Image with subtext "WinRAR Jr. theme © by FOOOD's Icons, www.foood.net" is a commercial. Completely irrelevant. I'm removing it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.100.44.98 (talk • contribs) 21:28, February 27, 2006 (UTC)

Image was put back into article, removing it for a second time. It adds nothing to the article -plenk —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Plenk (talk • contribs) 10:29, April 6, 2006 (UTC)

OS mistake
The WINRAR's OS is Windows systems, the RAR's OS can be cross-platform. That's why i moddified the OS type —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jolly man (talk • contribs) 11:17, June 3, 2006 (UTC)

40 Day Trial
Why does WinRAR still allow the user to continue using the software after the 40 day restriction period..? this is rather baffling. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.160.157.30 (talk • contribs) 12:48, August 9, 2006 (UTC)
 * Most sharewares do. It often restricts you in certain areas of the product and every time you open it a window which wants you to purchase the full product pops up. 85.230.35.92 20:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's restricted at all though. I've always been able to use all features of it, once you close the little nag window once. 76.102.188.61 00:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Not true. You can use most of the important features, but you can't use Autenticity verification feature with the trial version. And there might be other features too. -Paul- 09:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Re-describing of section 1
This will sound picky, but I don't understand the intent of the heading - "No other Windows RAR encode / decode programs". The text proceeding soes state clearly that the "Win" versions are meant only for Windows, i.e. you can't (ideally) run WinRAR on Linux. Can I request a re-write of the heading? MonstaPro 12:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Vista?
Can it be safely used under Windows Vista? It seem like it tend to crash Windows shell. --FinnWiki 22:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It works fine on mine.--Thewritingwriter17 (talk) 18:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Dont use the 32 bit version on 64 bit windows or the shell extensions wont work94.168.168.153 (talk) 18:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

shareware?
surely nagware--Mongreilf 22:04, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Definitely. 88.105.31.168 19:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Methods of encryption
I acknowledged that WinRAR supports archival encryption with AES128 algorithm, but to what extent? Is it completely encrypted? How effective is this encryption being applied to the WinRAR archives? Is AES128 been correctly implemented as it should?

What is the cryptographic hash function to derive the encryption key from the user password? And is the hash secure or correctly implemented?

88.105.80.248 13:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Beta versions
Is it really necessary to list beta versions which add no new features? There are five betas of WinRAR 3.8 posted and even the latest one isn't really significant for end users. Artem-S-Tashkinov (talk) 20:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Release dates and betas
First of all release dates of 3.70, 3.71 and 3.80 are incorrect. Here's the full "history-line":


 * 1) Version 2.00 - October 14, 1996 (Version 2.00 had 3 betas before release)
 * 2) Version 2.01 - April 7, 1997
 * 3) Version 2.02 - September 16, 1997
 * 4) Version 2.03 - March 19, 1998
 * 5) Version 2.04 - May 15, 1998
 * 6) Version 2.05 - September 21, 1998
 * 7) Version 2.06 - December 7, 1998
 * 8) Version 2.50 - March 24, 1999 (Version 2.50 - 7 betas)
 * 9) Version 2.60 - October 30, 1999 (Version 2.60 - 8 betas)
 * 10) Version 2.70 - May 11, 2000 (Version 2.70 - 5 betas)
 * 11) Version 2.71 - June 20, 2000
 * 12) Version 2.80 - March 2, 2001 (Version 2.80 - 5 betas)
 * 13) Version 2.90 - September 20, 2001 (Version 2.90 - 4 betas)
 * 14) Version 3.00 - May 14, 2002 (Version 3.00 - 7 betas)
 * 15) Version 3.10 - December 18, 2002 (Version 3.10 - 5 betas)
 * 16) Version 3.11 - January 15, 2003
 * 17) Version 3.20 - May 15, 2003 (Version 3.20 - 5 betas)
 * 18) Version 3.30 - January 22, 2004 (Version 3.30 - 5 betas)
 * 19) Version 3.40 - September 8, 2004 (Version 3.40 - 6 betas)
 * 20) Version 3.41 - November 2, 2004
 * 21) Version 3.42 - December 26, 2004
 * 22) Version 3.50 - August 8, 2005 (Version 3.50 - 7 betas)
 * 23) Version 3.51 - October 7, 2005
 * 24) Version 3.60 - August 5, 2006 (Version 3.60 - 8 betas)
 * 25) Version 3.61 - September 14, 2006
 * 26) Version 3.62 - December 4, 2006
 * 27) Version 3.70 - May 22, 2007 (Version 3.70 - 8 betas)
 * 28) Version 3.71 - September 20, 2007 (Version 3.71 - 1 beta)
 * 29) Version 3.80 - September 16, 2008 (Version 3.80 - 5 betas)

Source - AV-timestamps of original distribution packages (all these versions can be easily found in Internet).

We could add here also
 * 1) Version 1.54b - June 20, 1995 ( - this date is questionable)

Second, it's also possible to list all beta versions of WinRAR as well, but not all builds. Many betas (starting from version 3.2b5) had few (from 1-2 upto 5-7 or maybe even more) different builds, which were silently updated on author's site during development. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.140.46.193 (talk) 13:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

rar
Windows Roshal ARchiver ??? --Umar1996 (talk) 16:20, 20 October 2010 (UTC) Yes.--Pubserv (talk) 19:13, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Current developer
In the copyright notice in "About WinRAR", it says Alexander Roshal. This is the case for version 4.10 (64-bit) at least. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TigerSharkTM (talk • contribs) 07:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Old versions
WinRAR Unplugged doesn't exist anymore. Old versions of it are available for download on some websites, but not on the official page. 79.114.93.17 (talk) 18:38, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Winrar Unplugged bad link
Winrar Unplugged link doesn't go to a page related to a portable version of winrar. It instead goes to a checkout page to buy winrar: https://shop.win-rar.com/16/purl-shop — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.172.127.236 (talk) 06:22, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Wrong - use of the software after trial does not revoke license.
Someone misreported it and applied part of section in an entirely different section. It will also not result in criminal or other sanctions. I'm tempted to remove the claim but I would caution it. The license is not long at all and it clear. -- Pretty les♀♥, Dark Mistress,   talk,  19:52, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion.
I'd suggest, in the infobox (if you know what I mean), to add info about beta-releases. Pubserv (talk) 21:52, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It's done. Thanks~ 193.163.223.128 (talk) 19:54, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Not at all~. Why the tilde?--Pubserv (talk) 19:13, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Compression of binaries & Itanium
My understanding is that Itanium is a 64-bit architecture distinct from the usual 64-bit Intel and equivalent chips (please correct me if I'm wrong). I've always been puzzled that WinRAR offers "64-bit executable (Itanium) compression" rather than something like "64-bit Intel x64", with "Pentium" for 32-bit executables. To test this I tried compressing a 32- and a 64-bit executable for a Windows 64 machine as sold these days. Compression using both the Pentium (32) and Itanium (64) compression was significantly better than without this optimisation. RAR4 and RAR5 formats gave very similar results. Here are the compressed sizes, using WinRAR 5.40 and compressing the 64- and 32-bit executables of Total Commander 9.0a, using Best compression and no options (no recovery record, solid archive, etc.), either with all extra compressions (Pentium, Itanium, Delta) or none:

So it would appear that "Itanium compression" merely means 64-bit executable compression. And executable compression gives a worthwhile improvement. And RAR4 and RAR5 compression ratios are very similar. (All of this for these particular files at least!)

It is very easy to replicate these figures, which I would say sources this information. However, I expect the lack of someone authoritatively having published it will make including it in the article without opposition difficult. Is there any published information about this?

Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 18:23, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Rather than '"Itanium compression" merely means 64-bit executable compression', I should perhaps have said '... 64-bit executables for Intel-like chips"'? I would speculate that the compression would be effective for any OS, but not for chips with completely different instruction sets. I've sent an email about this to RarLab; in the past they used an enhancement I suggested. x86-64, x64, x86_64, or AMD64 are correct, but perhaps too obscure for many users, Intel-like is the best I could come up with.
 * ADDED LATER I've had a reply from WinRar to the effect that Itanium compression only is supported, and that they "tested it with x86-64 exe and it does not affect its compression". Following up, I find that enabling 64-bit Itanium compression alone indeed makes no difference at all; file sizes are exactly the same as without executable and delta compression. Enabling 32-bit and delta compression makes exactly the large difference I reported. Of relatively little practical importance; the only conclusion is that enabling all three special compressions (this is the default) makes a significant improvement to compression ratios for 32- and 64-bit executables (for my test files at least).
 * Proper testing would involve archiving a variety of different executables for different operating systems, and all combinations of compression options; I'm not going to do that. Pol098 (talk)

The infinite 40-day trial
Could someone add some lines about the jokes and memes on this infinite 40-day trial (Someone more fluent in English than me)? Suggested source:. Damouns (talk) 09:35, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Versions, Versioning Sub-Section, needs more cite/refs/sourcing/sources
Highly noticeably MISSING are many, many CITE/REF sources for the #Versions sub-section of this article; I personally am curious why Linux unrar-free binary (CLI app) only supports up to plain (Win?)RAR 2.0. Was curious if anyone can find when Version 2.0 was released? Are there plans to CITE/REF each VERSION listed here-in?? It is nearly impossible to find version histories prior to v3! Anyone? -From Peter {a.k.a. Vid2vid (talk | contribs)} 22:52, 31 August 2021 (UTC).

win-rar.com vs rarlab.com
there is often confusion around which is the official website.

Someone on Level1Tech forum emailed winrar to ask, and the official website is win-rar.com while the developer website is rarlab.com https://forum.level1techs.com/t/win-rar-dot-com-vs-rarlab/200685/29 I have tried to update the website info to include both domain names but seams that only 1 website can be added. Any thoughts Please CaptainHisDudeness (talk) 13:54, 10 October 2023 (UTC)